Alarmed by the dengue bug with over 700 cases reported so far this year, Punjab Government has established Rapid Response Teams in each district for investigating the dengue cases.
The Government has also made the testing of Dengue free of cost at 15 established Sentinel Surveillance Hospitals (SSHs) in the state — Government Medical Colleges at Amritsar, Patiala, Faridkot; Civil Hospitals at Bathinda, Fatehgarh Sahib, Ferozepur, Gurdaspur, Hoshiarpur, Jalandhar, Kapurthala, ludhiana, Mansa, Moga, Sangrur and SAS Nagar.
“Dengue ward have been established at each district and sub-divisional hospitals. Each bed in these wards is provided with mosquito net for prevention of spread of the disease,” said the state Health and Family Welfare Minister Surjit Kumar Jayani. He said that supportive treatment is being given free of cost to dengue cases in the Government hospitals.
Minister said that Blood Component Separators have been installed at all 20 district level hospitals to provide blood components to serious cases. “The vector control is being done with insecticides and larvicides spray in and around the houses of confirmed dengue cases,” he added. Jiyani has also appealed to the social organizations to launch an awareness campaign to stop spread of dengue, besides appealing to the people to clean their surroundings and houses especially water coolers etc.
Principal Secretary, Health and Family Welfare Department Vini Mahajan said that 758 dengue cases have been reported till October 9, out of which one patient has died in the state. She added that six Aphresis machines have been installed at Civil Hospital Amritsar, Bathinda, Jalandhar, ludhiana, Sangrur and Mohali for provision of platelets to very serious cases of dengue.