Effective measures taken to control dengue: minister

LAHORE : Punjab Minister for Primary and Secondary Healthcare Dr Akhtar Malik has regretted those doing politics on dengue issue and said the PTI-led government during last three months has undertaken more effective measures to control dengue compared to Hamza Shehbaz’s government.

Dr Akhtar Malik was addressing a meeting of Punjab Dengue Monitoring Committee held at Civil Secretariat here on Saturday which was attended amongst others by administrative secretaries. Chief Secretary Abdullah Khan, divisional commissioners and deputy commissioners attended the meeting via video link.

The health minister said that in a bid to control dengue, 20.4 million surveillance, 185,000 IRS and 7,000 fogging activities were undertaken by Hamza Shehbaz regime while our government during past three months undertook 79.2 million dengue surveillance, 1.18 million IRS and 100,000 fogging activities across province which reflected out commitment towards addressing these issues.

He observed that despite heavy flash floods and monsoon dengue situation in the province is much better and only 38 deaths due to dengue were reported in current years as compared to 98 casualties reported during corresponding period of last year.

The minister asked all deputy commissioners to expedite indoor surveillance activities to prevent dengue situation. Secretary Health Dr Irshad Ahmad said that due to hectic surveillance activities of dengue workers only 17,061 confirmed dengue cases were reported in Punjab. He opined that dengue cases start falling down due to effective monitoring of dengue surveillance activities.