Sudden spurt in cases of dengue in Delhi and surrounding areas has raised the chances of the dreaded disease spreading in the State capital as thousands of people commute daily between these places. The laid-back attitude of district health department of Dehradun towards this problem is a cause of major concern.
The national capital is reeling under dengue menace as more than 1900 cases are reported in the month of September alone with death of many patients. The large daily inflow of people from the national capital poses threat to spread the disease in Dehradun.
Interestingly the health department officials claim that most of patients out of reported 142 positive cases of dengue in the district are those who travelled from outside or have got the infection from outside the district. Surprisingly in light of the above mentioned claim of health officials the preparation on ground is almost nil to prevent the infection from entering from outside. One of a retired health department official said that though it is not possible to keep an eye on all people who are travelling from outside the department should at least deploy teams at Railway station and bus stands to identify the sick people and track them. “The department should at least undertake an awareness drive in these places,” he said.
The Chief Medical Officer of Dehradun, Dr S P Agarwal said that the department is doing all what it can to control the disease. He said that the people should adopt preventive measures to control the disease. Dr Agarwal claimed that the department is on alert mode on the disease. The CMO said that fogging in many localities of the city is being done to kill mosquitoes.
The district vector-borne disease officer J P Bahuguna said that the hospitals have been asked to keep isolation wards ready for patients with symptoms of dengue. He said that the department has provided more than 500 mosquito nets to the
Dengue is a viral infection spread by the mosquito Aedes Aezypti also called 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 decrease drastically which may prove fatal for the patient. The tiger mosquito strikes during day time and it is suggested that people should wear full sleeved clothes to prevent mosquito bite.