Why India’s deadly dengue crisis is now no longer confined to the monsoons
Key takeaways
- Experts warn that rising temperatures, erratic rainfall and rapid urbanisation are transforming a seasonal disease into a year-round public health threat.
- The monsoon was still weeks away.
- So when headaches, severe body aches and fatigue forced him to visit a private hospital in Gurugram, he assumed he was suffering from a routine viral infection.
Why this matters: an international story with cross-border implications worth tracking.
Experts warn that rising temperatures, erratic rainfall and rapid urbanisation are transforming a seasonal disease into a year-round public health threat.
xwhatsapp-strokecopylinkgoogle Add Al Jazeera on Googleinfo A New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) sanitation worker fumigates a slum area to reduce breeding sites for mosquitoes to prevent dengue and other mosquito-borne tropical diseases, in New Delhi, India, on September 11, 2024 [Rajat Gupta/EPA]By Tauseef Ahmad and Sajid Raina Published On 11 Jun 202611 Jun 2026Gurugram, India — When Nitin Sharma developed a high fever in May, dengue was the last thing on his mind.
The monsoon was still weeks away. Like many Indians, the 32-year-old software engineer from Gurugram, a business district outside New Delhi, had grown up believing dengue was a disease that arrived with the rains and disappeared once the monsoon season ended.