Dengue figures reaching alarming proportions in the city has made East Singhbhum district surveillance unit opt for desperate measures, in terms of fogging.
After a review meeting with the East Singhbhum administration, the East Singhbhum integrated disease surveillance program (IDSP) unit officials today issued a letter to all the local urban bodies to change the existing system of fogging, aimed at increasing frequency of the insecticides targeted at eliminating adult mosquitoes (aedes aegypti).
“We have asked the local urban bodies to change from their existing roster of fogging either in the early morning or in the evening and do it throughout the day. This would increase the duration of fogging, considering the resource constraints, and in the process more areas would be covered in a day. We hope that vulnerable areas (based on vulnerability mapping submitted to the district administration) will have fogging at least thrice a week,” said the official.
According to data compiled by the district surveillance (IDSP) unit, based on the fogging roster submitted by various local urban bodies, there are some vulnerable areas which have fogging done after a span of 15-20 days which results in spread of adult mosquitoes.
“There are areas in Mango where fogging is done once in a month. Similarly in non-Tata Steel command areas fogging is done after 15 days due to resource constraints (number of fogging machines). As of now, all the urban bodies used to do fogging for a limited period of time in the morning or evening when the adult mosquitoes are very active. Now they can judiciously use their resources throughout the day and ensure that vulnerable areas are covered more frequently,” added the official.
According to reports, Tata Steel UISL which looks after Tata Steel command areas has hand held fogging sprayer and two truck mounted fogging machines which are deployed at its six health depots at Kasidih, Burmamines, Baridih, Sonari, Northern Town (Bistupur) and Ramdas Bhatta (Kadma).
JNAC has two truck mounted fogging machines and 12 handheld sprayers to cover its 12 zones (non-company command areas). Mango Notified Area Committee (MNAC) has only three truck mounted fogging machines for its three wards and Jugsalai municipality has only one truck mounted machine.