As many as 189 dengue patients have been hospitalised in the highest daily surge of cases this year, as the monsoon, an ideal season for the surge of Aedes mosquito-borne disease, is yet to arrive.

Two more people died from the disease in the 24 hours to Sunday morning, taking this year’s death toll to 24.

Among the 189 newly hospitalised dengue patients, 136 were reported in Dhaka, and 53 were outside the capital, according to the Directorate General of Health Services. A total of 156 patients were hospitalised on Saturday.

A total of 3,210 dengue patients were hospitalised across the country this year. Among them, 1,188 patients were hospitalised in June. Eleven among the 24 deaths occurred in June.

As many as 603 dengue patients were receiving treatment at different hospitals on Sunday morning. They include 497 in the capital and 106 outside Dhaka.

The health directorate advised people to be cautious of the disease as the number of dengue patients at different hospitals is higher this year than in previous years.

Most of the dengue patients who died this year have been suffering from Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever and shock syndrome was the reason for their deaths, the DGHS said in a media briefing on Saturday.

Last year, 62,382 people were hospitalised with the disease, and among them, a record number of 281 people died.

The highest number of dengue cases were recorded in 2019, with more than 100,000 patients hospitalised then. As many as 164 people died that year, data from the government says.

The latest wave of coronavirus infections in several South Asian nations has been complicated by a surge in dengue, a mosquito-transmitted virus that spreads during monsoon season.

The rise in cases of dengue — which can have symptoms similar to those of the coronavirus, such as fever, headaches and body aches — is adding to the load of hospitals that are already overwhelmed.

Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are experiencing some of the worst surges in dengue. Sri Lanka has reported more than 17,000 cases this year, including nearly 3,300 in July. Bangladesh has recorded about 4,500 cases of hospitalization for dengue this year, nearly half of them in July.

“The health system is already overburdened by Covid-19 patients,” said Dr. Himali Herath, a consultant physician at Sri Lanka’s National Dengue Control Unit. “Caring for dengue patients is labor-intensive. Therefore it will be very difficult.”

The World Health Organization estimates that there are hundreds of millions of dengue infections every year, and nearly two-thirds occur in Asia. There is no specific treatment for the virus, and severe cases can lead to death if not detected early and if patients do not receive adequate medical care.

“Due to the heavy stream of Covid-19 patients, we are turning dengue patients to other hospitals,” said Brig. Gen. Nazmul Haque, the director of the Dhaka Medical College Hospital in Bangladesh. “We are only treating the patients who are infected with both coronavirus and dengue.”

Dengue outbreaks also remain endemic in India, Nepal and Pakistan. In Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital, officials said the main hospital that treated dengue patients in previous years had been turned into a Covid hospital amid the country’s second wave of infections.

The government laboratory where all suspected dengue cases would usually be referred to for testing has also been overwhelmed with coronavirus tests, they said.