CS wants dengue cells at district level

PESHAWAR: Chief Secretary Dr Kazim Niaz on Tuesday directed the relevant quarters to establish dengue cell comprising officers from public health engineering, agriculture and other departments to coordinate and organise the anti-dengue campaign at district level.

“The cell should be established at district level which will be responsible to help out the health department in coordinating and organizing the anti-dengue campaign and it will report to the respective deputy commissioners about dengue disease on daily basis,” the chief secretary told the participants of a meeting of Provincial Oversight Committee for control of dengue.

The meeting was attended by the secretaries of Home, Local Government, Health, Higher Education, Information, Irrigation, E&SE, PHE, Relief & Rehabilitation departments, besides Director General Health Services and Director Health Merged Areas, said an official handout. The chief secretary further directed that PHE department would ensure the regular supply of drinking water so that the people may not reserve water in their homes which was a great source of development of larva.The Local Government Department was further directed to ensure the spray of larvicide in the stagnant water while all the government functionaries will be responsible for keeping their office premises dry so that growth of larva could be checked.

The chief secretary instructed the secretary Information to prepare an aggressive communication strategy and launch a widespread awareness campaign on print, electronic and social media so that all precautionary measures could be taken to check the dengue well in time.

Earlier, Secretary Health Yahya Akhunzada while briefing the meeting informed that anti-dengue campaign had been started across the province with great zeal and 24000 rapid testing kits were dispatched to all the districts of the province and awareness activities and trainings of the relevant staff had already been completed.

He said that due to the coronavirus pandemic, they had diverted attention towards dealing with prevailing issue. He further informed that process of recruitment of entomologists was in progress while the purchase of larvicide was also in pipeline.