Health department following dengue control strategy

Islamabad : The Health Department Islamabad is following a strategy composed of two parts to avoid and control dengue fever spread and in the first part of the strategy, it has deputed its teams comprising sanitary inspectors, lady health supervisors and workers to launch a continuous campaign.

In the first phase, the health department has asked its teams to carry out indoor and outdoor surveillance against dengue fever and launch a social mobilization campaign to create awareness among the rural population to adopt preventive measures to avoid bite of dengue mosquitoes, ‘aedes aegypti’, the vector that causes dengue fever.

Through door-to-door visits, the lady health workers have been asked to motivate community to remain vigilant to stop dengue mosquitoes to flourish or develop from larvae to adult mosquitoes inside homes and around the residences and to remove solid waste properly to avoid breeding of mosquitoes, said District Health Officer Islamabad Dr. Muhammad Najeeb Durrani while talking to ‘The News’ on Tuesday.

He said keeping in mind the high transmission season of dengue fever expected to be started in next two months, the health department has planned to hold awareness walks, display banners, distribute pamphlets and motivate school children to follow preventive measures to avoid dengue fever spread.

The existing weather conditions can be termed as the most suitable for mosquitoes’ larvae breeding and we are deploying teams at high risk sites to check growth of mosquitoes and possible spread of the disease, he said.

He added that for outdoor surveillance, the teams of health department have already started treating unnecessary water accumulations to destroy dengue vector chimerically by adding Temephos granules in stagnant water. For indoor surveillance of dengue vector, the teams are destroying larvae breeding sites mechanically, by hand, said Dr. Durrani.

He said for the last two days, the teams of health department have been carrying out filed activities in union councils Koral, Tarlai, Bharakahu, Kirpa, Kuri and Sohan to eliminate possible breeding sites of mosquitoes.

The LHWs have been looking for any probable breeding sites inside homes like room coolers having water, old broken furniture, toys, lids, cans, pitchers and saucers, refrigerator trays, flower pots, utensils and all those items that may attract the rainwater or water from other sources, he said.