Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) will conduct a 30-day anti-mosquito drive in all of its wards, starting November 1, as the capital remains the main hotspot of a recent spike in dengue cases.
DNCC Mayor Md Atiqul Islam announced the launch of the special drive said during a meeting in Dhaka’s Gulshan Thursday.
“Dengue cases are now on an upswing due to untimely storms and rains.The city corporation will work round-the-clock throughout the month to destroy the breeding grounds of Aedes, the carrier of the dengue virus, and Culex mosquitoes. The councillors, regional executive officers and health directorate officials will be on the field in each ward,” he said.
Even before the country’s healthcare system has been able to fully recover from the blow of the Covid-19 pandemic, it is being hit hard by a recurrence of an outbreak of dengue, the disease that is endemic to Bangladesh.
With three more deaths from dengue confirmed today, the official death toll from the disease rose to 123 in 2022 – the second-highest on record after the 179 deaths recorded in 2019.
In 2021, Bangladesh reported 28,429 dengue cases and 105 deaths, previously the second-highest number. The total number of cases this year stood at 34,822 as of Thursday.
Doctors and health experts say that measures taken by the city corporations and other authorities are not proving to be effective. The publicity and drives carried out by the authorities to destroy larvae of Aedes mosquito are proving to be inadequate.
