Health experts finally coming up with good news in terms dengue epidemic in the country, saying the number of patients being infected with the deadly virus is coming down, reports BSS.
According to the experts, the overall situation of the outbreak of the mosquito-borne disease has also improved big time. “People are now more alert of the deadly disease because of cleanliness and awareness building programmes . . . it is one of the main reasons behind decreasing the number of dengue patients across the country,” Director General of Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) Prof Abul Kalam Azad told BSS.
“The panic too has gone down among the people,” he said. Referring lesser amount of rainfall in recent days, Prof Azad said, rainfall increases chance for Aedes breeding, thus less rainfall is a blessing in disguise for us. At present, a total of 4,697 dengue patients are undergoing treatment at different hospitals and clinics across the country, which was 6,733 just a
week before, according to Health Crisis Management and Control Room of DGHS. Around 1,025 new dengue patients got admitted to different hospitals in the last 24 hours across the country while the figure was much higher even a week ago. On July 27, the government issued a statement to make people aware of taking certain steps to stop spread of dengue and measures to protect them from being inflicted by the mosquito-borne disease.
People were asked not to allow accumulate water around their offices, houses or in their neighbouring areas. Change all accumulated water in containers within three days, it suggested. As Aedes mosquito usually bites during the day, people were advised to cover their body, as much as possible, with clothes and use mosquito nets even while sleeping during the day time.
Dengue affected persons have been advised to identify it by not only the occurrence of fever, headache, muscular pain or red skin rash, as lately it has been observed that there are exceptions to it, the release noted. Earlier on July 24 the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) issued a set of directives asking concerned government agencies to launch a social awareness campaign to negate rumours leading to fatal incidents and check spread of dengue fever. The directives were issued in line with instructions of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
The PMO asked the authorities concerned of the two Dhaka city corporations to strengthen their anti-mosquito drives to check dengue. It also instructed the health authorities to form a special medical team in each city hospital to ensure smooth and proper treatment for the dengue patients. The PMO asked all government officials to clean their respective offices and to prevent dengue alongside motivating people to keep their residences and neighbourhoods clean by removing stagnant clean water from different pots, particularly flower tubes, air conditioner machines and refrigerators.
Both the Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) and Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) launched month long programmes to destroy Aedes mosquito and its breeding grounds on July 20. DNCC conducting combing operations dividing each ward into 10 blocks for the programme and deployed 10 cleaners to work in each block and an official to oversee their activities.
As part of the programme, DNCC staffs are visiting every house in every area during the combing operation to check Aedes mosquito larvae in houses or establishments. The DSCC assigned a 10-member team to conduct operation in 50 houses every day to destroy Aedes mosquito breeding places.