A sourced reference on dengue, malaria and chikungunya numbers across Gujarat and India — and on how mosquito control actually works in Surat, drawn from state health department figures and Surat Municipal Corporation’s own operational records.
Key findings at a glance
- Gujarat’s dengue cases fell 39.1% year-on-year up to epidemiological Week 33 of 2026 — from 1,293 to 788 cases.
- Malaria fell 45% (1,407 → 774) and chikungunya 48.1% (154 → 80) over the same period.
- No malaria or dengue deaths were reported in Gujarat during that period.
- More than 29.63 lakh mosquito breeding sites were eliminated during Gujarat’s house-to-house surveillance campaigns in 2026.
- Nationally, dengue is not following Gujarat’s downward trend: India recorded 23,952 cases in the first six months of 2026 alone, against 25,492 in all of 2025.
- In Surat, municipal anti-larval teams treat roughly 327 sq km weekly, and 489 surveillance workers conduct fortnightly door-to-door checks.
1. Gujarat’s 2026 numbers
Gujarat’s State Health Department reported a broad decline across all three major mosquito-borne diseases in 2026, measured up to epidemiological Week 33 (roughly mid-August) and compared against the same period in 2025.
| Disease | 2025 (to Week 33) | 2026 (to Week 33) | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Malaria | 1,407 | 774 | ▼ 45% |
| Dengue | 1,293 | 788 | ▼ 39.1% |
| Chikungunya | 154 | 80 | ▼ 48.1% |
| Malaria & dengue deaths | — | 0 | None reported |
(Source: Gujarat State Health Department, reported via IANS / Health Dialogues, 20 August 2026)
Visualising the decline
Bars scaled to the largest value (malaria 2025 = 1,407). Cases to epidemiological Week 33 each year. (Source: Gujarat State Health Department via IANS, August 2026)
The surveillance effort behind those numbers
| Activity | 2026 figure |
|---|---|
| Blood samples tested for malaria (to Week 33) | Over 1.11 crore |
| Dengue serum samples tested (to Week 33) | Over 83,000 |
| Chikungunya serum samples tested (to Week 33) | Over 12,000 |
| Hospitals with dengue/chikungunya diagnostic centres | 42 (medical-college affiliated) |
| Mosquito breeding sites eliminated | Over 29.63 lakh |
| Houses fogged | Over 3.21 lakh |
| Vector-control teams deployed for monsoon | 497 |
| Waterlogging sites stocked with larvivorous fish (by end July) | 5,024 |
| Teams in second house-to-house phase (1–10 July) | 19,558 |
| People covered, second phase | Over 6.51 crore |
(Source: Gujarat State Health Department, reported via IANS / Health Dialogues, 20 August 2026)
Gujarat ran its house-to-house surveillance in two phases during 2026. The first, from 27 April to 6 May, achieved 89% coverage through fever surveillance, anti-larval work and health education. The second, from 1 to 10 July, deployed 19,558 teams, collected more than 2.57 lakh blood samples and detected 28 malaria cases, all of which received treatment.
In malaria-sensitive areas, more than one lakh people across 116 villages in 24 districts were covered in the first round of insecticide spraying, with a second round beginning on 1 August 2026.
2. India’s dengue trend, 2023–2026
Gujarat’s improvement should not be read as a national picture. India’s dengue numbers have moved sharply in both directions over four years, and 2026 is tracking high.
| Year | Reported dengue cases (India) | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 19,097 | — |
| 2024 | 32,403 | ▲ 69.7% |
| 2025 | 25,492 | ▼ 21.3% |
| 2026 (first six months only) | 23,952 | 94% of the 2025 full-year total, at the halfway mark |
(Source: National Center for Vector Borne Diseases Control (NCVBDC), Ministry of Health & Family Welfare; 2026 partial-year figure reported August 2026)
3. Where Gujarat sits nationally
Gujarat was the fifth-highest state for reported dengue cases in 2025.
| Rank | State / UT | Dengue cases, 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tamil Nadu | 20,866 |
| 2 | Uttar Pradesh | 8,926 |
| 3 | Telangana | 8,139 |
| 4 | Rajasthan | Over 4,300 |
| 5 | Gujarat | 3,947 |
| 6 | Bihar | 3,774 |
| 7 | Delhi | 3,746 |
| 8 | Jammu & Kashmir | 3,343 |
| 9 | Haryana | 2,554 |
| 10 | Andhra Pradesh | 2,386 |
(Source: National Center for Vector Borne Diseases Control (NCVBDC), 2025 state-wise data)
Note the difference in scale between the two Gujarat figures on this page: 3,947 cases for the whole of 2025, against 1,293 up to Week 33 of that year. Roughly two-thirds of Gujarat’s annual dengue burden in 2025 arrived after mid-August. That seasonal weighting matters for anyone reading the 2026 decline as a finished result.
4. How mosquito control actually runs in Surat
Surat Municipal Corporation’s Vector Borne Diseases Control Department — formerly the Filaria Malaria Department — publishes an unusually detailed account of its operations. The numbers below are useful context for any Surat resident or facility manager, because they describe what the city does and, by omission, what it does not do inside your building.
| Activity | Scale / frequency |
|---|---|
| Peri-domestic anti-larval treatment area | Approx. 327 sq km, at weekly intervals, year-round |
| Door-to-door active surveillance workers | 489, on a fortnightly cycle |
| Urban Health Centres for passive surveillance | 39 |
| Larvivorous fish hatcheries across zones | Around 53 |
| Space spray radius around a suspected dengue case | 200 metres |
| Indoor Residual Spraying in high-risk areas | Every August |
| Peak malaria period in Surat | August–October |
| Mass Drug Administration (filariasis) coverage | 98% of population, every December |
| Plague surveillance unit operating since | 1994 |
(Source: Surat Municipal Corporation, Vector Borne Diseases Control Department)
The corporation treats breeding spots with larvicides including MLO, biolarvicides and Temephos 50%. Rodent burrows in high flea-index areas are treated with Malathion 5% dust under the plague surveillance programme. Aedes aegypti specimens collected during entomological surveillance are sent to the National Institute of Virology, Pune, for virus isolation.
A point most residents miss
Surat Municipal Corporation files court prosecutions and levies administrative charges against premises found creating mosquito breeding sites. Notices are issued to defaulters and penalties imposed as fines.
(Source: Surat Municipal Corporation, Vector Borne Diseases Control Department)
For housing societies, construction sites, hotels and factories, standing water on your premises is therefore not only a health risk — it carries a regulatory one. Overhead tanks, underground tanks, ground tanks, barrels, drums and earthen pots are all named by the corporation as intra-domestic breeding spots it inspects.
5. Why the numbers fell — and the caveat
Gujarat’s health department attributes the 2026 decline to increased surveillance, wider testing and expanded mosquito-control measures. The supporting evidence is reasonable: testing volume rose (over 1.11 crore malaria blood samples in 2026 against over 1.09 crore in 2025), so the fall in detected cases is not simply the result of looking less hard.
Two honest caveats belong alongside that:
- The season was not over. Week 33 falls in mid-August. Based on 2025’s full-year figure of 3,947 against 1,293 at Week 33, the majority of Gujarat’s dengue cases historically arrive after this cut-off. A mid-season decline is encouraging, not conclusive.
- Reported cases are not total infections. Surveillance data counts laboratory-confirmed and reported cases. Globally, an estimated 390 million dengue infections occur annually across more than 100 countries, with around 2.5 billion people living in at-risk areas — figures far above what national reporting systems capture, because many infections are mild or asymptomatic.
(Sources: Gujarat State Health Department via IANS, August 2026; global infection estimates via World Mosquito Program)
6. The mosquito itself: what the data says
Aedes aegypti, the principal dengue vector, has three characteristics that explain why city-wide fogging alone never solves the problem:
- It breeds in man-made containers, not swamps. Stored drinking water, plant-pot bases, guttering, tarpaulins, discarded tyres and abandoned containers all collect rainwater and serve as larval habitat.
- It is a domestic mosquito. It prefers to live indoors, close to people — which places much of its breeding habitat inside private premises that municipal teams cannot routinely enter.
- It bites during the day. Unlike many mosquitoes, Aedes aegypti peaks in the early morning and in the evening before dusk. Bed nets, effective against night-biting malaria vectors, offer far less protection against it.
(Sources: European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, Aedes aegypti factsheet; World Mosquito Program)
Surat Municipal Corporation’s own operational split reflects this directly: it runs separate peri-domestic and intra-domestic programmes, because the containers that matter most sit inside buildings.
7. What this means for households and businesses
We treat mosquito problems across Surat, and the honest position is this: no treatment ends mosquitoes permanently, because the mosquitoes are not the problem — the standing water that produces them is, and it refills every time it rains. Anyone promising permanent elimination is selling something that does not exist.
What the data above does support:
- Source reduction outperforms spraying. Gujarat eliminated over 29.63 lakh breeding sites in 2026 and released larvivorous fish at 5,024 waterlogging sites. Both target larvae rather than adults. Fogging kills the adults flying today; it does nothing about the eggs in your terrace planter.
- The municipal programme stops at your door. The corporation covers roughly 327 sq km of peri-domestic area weekly, but intra-domestic breeding — tanks, drums, pots, coolers inside your building — is largely your responsibility, and is where Aedes prefers to breed.
- August to October is the window that matters in Surat. That is the corporation’s stated peak malaria period, and it is when post-monsoon dengue activity builds.
- For commercial premises, there is a compliance angle. Breeding sites on your property can attract municipal notices, administrative charges and court prosecution.
A realistic approach is an inspection that finds where water is collecting on the property, treatment of those sources, and a return visit — because conditions change with every rainfall, not because the first treatment failed.
8. Methodology and sources
Every statistic on this page comes from a named source that was retrieved and checked on 1 September 2026. No figures have been estimated, interpolated or rounded up for effect. Where a number is partial-year, seasonal or provisional, it is labelled in the text.
Two conventions used above:
- Epidemiological Week 33 falls in mid-August. Gujarat’s 2026 and 2025 comparisons both use this cut-off, so they are like-for-like.
- Indian numbering is used where the source used it: 1 lakh = 100,000; 1 crore = 10,000,000.
Sources
- Gujarat State Health Department — 2026 malaria, dengue and chikungunya case counts to epidemiological Week 33; surveillance, testing, fogging, breeding-site and larvivorous-fish figures. Reported by IANS via Health Dialogues, 20 August 2026.
- National Center for Vector Borne Diseases Control (NCVBDC), Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India — national dengue case totals 2023–2026 and 2025 state-wise dengue ranking.
- Surat Municipal Corporation, Vector Borne Diseases Control Department — anti-larval coverage area, surveillance staffing, Urban Health Centres, hatcheries, space-spray radius, Indoor Residual Spraying schedule, peak malaria period, MDA coverage, plague surveillance, larvicides used, and enforcement practice.
- European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) — Aedes aegypti factsheet: container breeding, domestic habitat preference and daytime biting behaviour.
- World Mosquito Program — global dengue infection and at-risk population estimates.
Corrections: if you believe any figure on this page is inaccurate or out of date, we want to know. Contact details are below and the page will be updated with a dated note.
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