Health teams to sensitise public to vector-borne diseases

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, March 14

The Health Department is all set to galvanise its machinery to counter the vector-borne diseases. It will observe every Friday as Health Dry Day during which the public will be sensitised to cleaning their water storage tanks, coolers and others things.

Interestingly, officials of the Health Department will also clean their coolers and containers in their surroundings of stagnant water where mosquitoes can breed.

Officials will impose fine on other officials for not keeping their surroundings and water or air-coolers clean, where mosquitoes can breed, which cause dengue and malaria.

About 2,017 cases of dengue were found positive last year whereas about 36 samples of suspected dengue patients were taken by the Health Department in Bathinda.

Dengue has broken the record of past many years in Bathinda and the number of patients in comparison to other districts of Punjab was highest here.

About 55 cases of Malaria were witnessed in Bathinda in 2015-16. However, no case was reported in January and February this year.

Last year too, in order to counter the dengue larva, the Municipal Corporation Bathinda, along with Health Department, started imposing fines on local residents only with a motive to make them aware of keeping their surroundings clean.

The Municipal Corporation also carried out fogging on a daily basis.

Since the beginning of March this year, the department has been holding weekly meetings to counter the dengue menace and other vector-borne diseases.

Instructions to ANMs and other health staff have been given to create awareness among the masses to keep their surroundings clean while various health teams are on their toes in towns to check stagnant water lying in tyres or other such containers in public places where mosquitoes can breed.

Epidemiologist Dr Rajpal said, “We have been taking interest to create awareness among the masses about the vector-borne diseases. As dengue knocked our district much earlier than expectations last year, leaving many affected in Goniana, we are taking effective steps consciously this time. Our teams are working and removing the stagnant water from tyres and other such containers. Fogging would be done by the Municipal Corporation in the town.”

“The coolers or containers where water is stored and the dengue mosquito can lay eggs need to be cleaned-up in every six to seven days,” Dr Rajpal added.

Public participation is must

Dr Rajpal is of the view that public participation is the need of the hour as people need to clean their refrigerators and surroundings. “Water that remains stagnant in tiers, old unused coolers, flowers pots and other such things nurtures dengue larva and people should be made aware of these precautions. Water should not remain stagnant in any area and the areas that witness the overflowing of rain water should be given more concentration,” he said.