The Calcutta High Court Friday directed the civic authorities to deploy auto rickshaws with fogging machines to control the outbreak of dengue which has claimed 16 lives in West Bengal.

A division bench of Chief Justice V.S. Sirpurkar and Justice A.K. Ganguly also asked the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) to work in coordination with general physicians to ensure that the suspected patients undergo blood tests for dengue and the exact number of cases could be ascertained.

The court directed the KMC to keep all its dispensaries open till 10 p.m. instead of 6 p.m.

The court also issued similar instructions to the state government to combat the disease in other parts of West Bengal.

The KMC and state government earlier submitted their affidavits in the court, informing it of the steps they had taken to fight dengue, malaria and an unidentified variety of fever.

The court had last Friday ordered the state government and the municipal corporation to file a report within a week on the situation.

The court order was in response to a petition filed by Sheikh Sajahan Hussain and others.

Idris Ali, All-India Minority Forum president and Skeikh's counsel, contended that the absence of adequate preventive measures was leading to an increase in the death toll.

The case will be heard again on September 16.

West Bengal has declared dengue or brain fever caused by the bite of Aedis Egyptai mosquito an epidemic in West Bengal.

The epidemic had claimed 16 lives even as more than 1000 people were affected, the state's health director Prabhakar Chatterjee said.