Pune has recorded 2,413 dengue cases this year, including 553 cases reported up to October 20, prompting the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) to review hospital bed availability and strengthen mosquito-control measures across the city.
At a review meeting held on Friday, additional municipal commissioner Pavneet Kaur said the civic body would meet private hospitals on Monday to assess the number of beds available for dengue patients. The move comes as the PMC has urged residents to approach civic-run hospitals amid concerns about bed availability at private facilities.
Civic hospitals currently have 4,409 beds for dengue patients, including 670 intensive care unit beds, according to officials cited in the report. Occupancy was around 50%, indicating that half of the identified capacity was in use at the time of the review.
The PMC’s field inspections have focused on stagnant water and mosquito-breeding sites. Officials have inspected around 1.4 lakh houses and checked more than 28 lakh containers and water tanks. Mosquito larvae were found in 18,885 containers across nearly 13,000 houses during these inspections.
The civic body has issued 2,664 notices and collected Rs 6.3 lakh in fines in connection with mosquito-breeding conditions. These enforcement figures show that dengue control is being treated not only as a hospital-capacity issue but also as a neighbourhood-level sanitation and water-management challenge.
The PMC has made free rapid diagnostic kits available at civic hospitals and directed officials to ensure prompt fogging after dengue cases are reported. Residents with severe symptoms have been advised to visit Kamala Nehru Hospital or Dr Naidu Hospital.
The planned meeting with private hospitals is expected to give the civic administration a clearer assessment of citywide capacity, while the available civic-hospital numbers provide the current basis for treating patients within the municipal system. Further action will depend on the bed-availability review and continuing field inspections.
