You give me fever

Delhi has already registered more than 130 cases of the Dengue and Chikungunya mosquito borne viruses this year. The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) is conducting a campaign to raise awareness about water logging and de-silting household drains before the onset of monsoon rains in July and providing insecticides to use inside the tank of water coolers. Dengue mosquitoes like to breed in fresh water and it's the female of the species that is the nasty one and bites only by day.

This man Radhe Shyam from the MCD came to check our water tank (separate to our drinking water) and which tested positive for dengue. He showed us what looked like two tiny little worms (larvae), barely visible to the naked eye, swimming in the bottom of the scoop of water he took out of the water cooler tank that we fill twice a day during these extremely hot months. Yikes. Life here presents all kinds of daily challenges I've not encountered elsewhere.

Radhe Shyam told us we would be served a penalty notice by the MCD and would need to pay the fine and go to court in 'Tis Hazari. It seemed unfair to be penalised for inadvertently adding to a problem that already exists and expected to be a bigger epidemic. M said 'look at us old retired folks. How can we be going to court?' He looked at me and said 'she looks young enough to attend'.

Next up was the thorough cleaning on a 43C day of the inside and outside of the water tank, the drains and making insecticide pouches to drop into the water. There were 3 of us, all frayed from the heat and as usual DM did almost all the hard work.

Apparently Dengue Fever and Chikungunya have become common since WWII; the former in more than a 100 countries and the latter mainly in Africa and Asia.