ICT Health Department starts field activities against dengue fever

Islamabad: Teams of Islamabad Capital Territory Health Department have started working in the field for both indoor and outdoor surveillance against dengue fever after a little rise in temperature particularly at daytime.

Apart from creating awareness among public on preventive measures against dengue fever, the ICT Health Department has directed its teams to work for identification and elimination of larvae of mosquito ‘aedes aegypti’, the vector that causes dengue fever. The teams have also been directed to work for removal of potential breeding sites of dengue fever vector inside homes and at outdoor hotspots.

After a meeting chaired by Deputy Commissioner on Wednesday, the ICT Health Department has deputed a total of six teams comprising sanitary inspectors, malaria inspectors and sanitary patrols for outdoor surveillance in high-risk areas on the subject of dengue fever transmission while over 300 lady health workers have been directed to visit door-to-door for indoor surveillance of houses in rural areas of the capital, said Additional District Health Officer at ICT Health Department Dr. Muhammad Najeeb Durrani when contacted by ‘The News’ on Sunday.

He added the list of hot spots in all union councils of rural areas of the federal capital has already been finalised. The teams have been directed to sprinkle temiphos granules on ponds of stagnant water located anywhere in the rural areas to avoid breeding of mosquito ‘aedes aegypti’, he said.

It is worth mentioning here that the ICT Health Department does not have any specified staff for dengue fever surveillance and had been deploying its staff including LHWs and sanitary and malaria inspectors for field activities to avoid dengue fever outbreak for over a decade.

”We sent a demand for 170 personnel for strengthening surveillance against dengue fever in the beginning of January this year however, so far, we have not received any response from the ministry,” said Dr. Durrani.

He said the ICT Health Department has applied for induction of staff including epidemiologists, entomologists, sanitary inspectors, sanitary patrols, fog machine operators along with surveillance officers for field activities in all 15 union councils in rural areas of Islamabad.

To a query, he said the health department has established a dengue fever surveillance cell being headed by him. The staff deployed in the field including LHWs and sanitary and malaria inspectors submit their activity reports daily to the surveillance cell, he said.

It is important that last year, the population in the federal capital faced the worst ever dengue fever outbreak that claimed at least six lives. During the last year’s outbreak, well over 2,600 patients were confirmed positive for the infection of which over 80 per cent were from rural areas in the federal capital. Keeping the fact in mind, the health department has launched larvae identification and elimination campaign well before time, said Dr. Durrani.