<b>Geetanjali Krishna:</b> Fighting dengue at home

The other day, I was stuck in traffic on a busy road when I saw a man on a bicycle carrying a bushel of papaya leaves. Our eyes met and I gestured towards the leaves. "What are these for?" I asked. He said that he had started collecting these leaves when his father got dengue earlier this month. Apparently, he was treated with the juice of these leaves, and recovered fully with few adverse effects. "Now, in the RK Puram slum where I live, every house has at least one person sick with what seems to be dengue. I have been advising all of them to drink papaya leaf juice just in case, and bring these leaves for anyone who needs them," he said. "This treatment is much more effective than anything that the doctors in Safdarjung Hospital can provide!" The traffic cleared slightly, and off he went, bearing his medicinal load.

Given the frightening spread of this disease in the last fortnight, I am not surprised that more and more people are looking for ways to deal with dengue on their own. More than 1,000 dengue cases have been reported in the last 15 days, with 443 cases reported between Monday and Thursday of last week alone. Sadly, the government and civic authorities don't seem to have a handle on this virus that infects and kills hundreds, even though it appears unfailingly every year. Although our neighbourhood has seen the MCD regularly check for mosquito breeding areas, people who live in the nearby low-income settlement say they have not had as many visits.

"They dug deep trenches in our neighbourhood to lay some wires just before the rains began," said Meena, a cook who lives in Munirka. "As a result, our road had developed many potholes that are constantly full of water." Construction activities have added to the mess - and to the puddles and open tanks where mosquitos breed. Consequently, this summer, all sorts of fevers have been doing the rounds in her neighbourhood. Many of them, especially children, have been afflicted with dengue. "Sometimes, I have seen MCD fumigating our area to kill mosquitos. But I always wonder that won't it be easier and cheaper to maintain cleanliness so that these killer mosquitos don't breed at all?" she asked.

Unsurprisingly, papaya leaves are all the rage in Meena's neighbourhood as well. Some cook the leaves before juicing them, others swear by the juice of fresh leaves. Some mix it with fruit juice or sugar, others believe that it is best drunk by itself. "I heard that papaya leaf juice is most effective when taken at the onset of dengue. So, when my son got fever, I went to a nearby nursery to buy a plant. They said that the demand for papaya plants was so great that they couldn't meet it!" she said. Her son recovered (aided greatly by papaya leaf juice, she believed). Now, she says that her neighbours have begun to sow papaya seeds in every available open space - just in case they have the misfortune to need the leaves.

While dengue as well as the rush for papaya leaves reaches epidemic proportions, the scientific community has not sufficiently researched whether the leaves actually work at all. I found one lab study that showed that papaya leaf extract was capable of increasing the platelet count - but in rats. The jury may still be out on whether or not papaya leaves cure dengue - but what we urgently need is something to cure our present government and civic authorities of their apathy, inefficiency and old-fashioned incompetence.