Saturday, 15 May 2021 | PNS | Dehradun
All necessary preparation should be made to prevent the spread of dengue- health secretary
Fighting a grim battle on the Covid 19 front, the state health department is now gearing up to meet the challenge of Dengue. In a letter to all the district magistrates (DM), the secretary health Amit Singh Negi has said that all necessary preparation should be made to prevent the spread of dengue. He has directed the administration to make micro plans to contain the disease. Negi said that source reduction of the mosquito is an effective way of controlling the disease and teams of health department and Asha workers should be made for this activity. He said that the availability of Enzyme Linked Immuno Sorbent Assay (ELISA) kits for testing the disease should be maintained and the hospitals should be made functional to treat patients of dengue. Negi also called for sanitization and awareness campaigns to contain the disease and directed that fever surveys should be done in the initial stages.
It is worth mentioning here that Dengue, a vector borne disease, had affected more than 10,500 persons in Uttarakhand and had taken many lives in the year 2019. In Dehradun district alone, the health department had reported 4991 patients with six deaths. As dengue season starts with the summers and lasts till onset of the winters, the state health department which at present is engaged in dealing with pandemic of Covid-19 wants that the dengue should not assume epidemic proportions this year.
Dengue is a viral infection spread by the mosquito Aedes Aezypti popularly known as Tiger Mosquito. The symptoms of the disease are persistent high fever, rashes, headache and pain in the joints. In the acute cases the platelets number decreases drastically which may prove fatal for the patient. In Uttarakhand the disease is more prevalent in Dehradun, Haridwar, Nainital and Udham Singh Nagar districts.
