NEW DELHI: Terming the spread of dengue in the capital as alarming, union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad

on Thursday ordered the state to take immediate actio ns like increasing beds for dengue patients and ensuring availability of platele ts in hospitals. The health minister held an emergency meeting with the state health minister A K Walia, the mayors of north, south and east municipal corporations and the medic al superintendents of major hospitals like AIIMS and Safdarjung to assess the si tuation. "The state has been asked to direct all the hospitals - both private an d government - to have five to ten extra beds for dengue patients, depending on their capacity. All hospitals have enough platelet units to be given to patients but any additional requirement will be fulfilled by the Indian Red Cross Societ y," said Azad. Delhi has reported around 1700 dengue cases this year, of which close to 1100 ca ses have been reported in September alone. At least eight people, three confirme d positive for the mosquito-borne disease through government-approved Elisa test and five other suspected patients, have died due to dengue this year. Azad said that the increased incidence of dengue this season could be due to lon g spells of rain. "Rain started in the middle of June and is still continuing. T his has led to heavy breeding of mosquitoes," the health minister said. He stres sed on community participation to check breeding of mosquitoes in and around hou ses. The ministry has ordered the heads of all three municipal corporations to check all overhead tanks and submit an action taken report within a week. ASHA workers , who work under the National Rural Health Mission, have been permitted to be ro ped in by the state government for dengue screening of suspected patients for ea rly treatment. "At least seven advisories were issued to all states before the m onsoon to take advance steps to check mosquito-breeding and issue guidelines for treatment of dengue patients," said a health ministry official. A K Walia, the Delhi health minister, said civic bodies have to implement the re quired preventive measures like anti-larval, de-fogging, spray over water bodies , exercising effective control over field staff, particularly domestic breeding checkers. "We are holding regular meetings with all hospitals to ensure there is no shortage of beds or platelets. Free kits of jumbo platelets, that can increa se the blood count by up to 20,000 units, are being made available to government hospitals for free," he said. Many health experts feel that government's actions are too little and too late. "The city is flooded with dengue cases. Almost every household has one dengue pa tient. Hospitals have fallen short of beds due to the patient rush and there is a near crisis situation as far as demand for platelets is concerned," said Mohan Prakash, a resident of East of Kailash. He said if intensive fogging and mosqui to-breeding checking was conducted properly in time the numbers could have been reduced.