Saturday, 04 September 2021 | PNS | Dehradun
The Dehradun district malaria officer Subhash Joshi said that locals need to be cautious for at least two months to avoid dengue fever outbreaks this year. He said this in view of the recent increase in dengue patients in Dehradun. He informed that a total of 12 dengue patients have been found in the district so far most of which belong to Dehradun city and its nearby areas. He said that the period of September to October is the peak period for dengue transmission and locals need to take all the possible measures to minimise the risk. He said that people should avoid the unnecessary accumulation of water in buckets, pipes, bottles, tyres, old drums and other objects to limit the dengue spread by limiting mosquitoes’ breeding. Talking about the district administration’s preparation, Joshi stated that the administration has intensified its campaign to minimise the risk of dengue in the district. He said that the administration is raising awareness among locals about dengue, conducting house surveys, destroying mosquitoes’ larvae and working on source reduction.
The administration’s team has surveyed over one lakh houses and destroyed mosquitoes’ larvae in over about 10,000 houses so far in association with the Municipal Corporation of Dehradun (MCD). Regular fogging is also being done in various wards of Dehradun as most of the patients are found here, said Joshi. The municipal commissioner Abhishek Ruhela has also directed the sanitation officials to intensify their anti-dengue campaign. According to Ruhela, the sanitation team is spraying larvicide and fumigating wards regularly but officials have been instructed to intensify this process. He said that drones are also being used to spray larvicide in areas where spraying it manually is difficult. Most of the dengue patients which have been identified in the city so far have come here from other cities but all the measures are being taken to minimise the risk, stated the commissioner.
