No let-up in dengue cases in Barotiwala, Baddi, Nalagarh

Tribune News Service

Solan,November 4

There was no let-up in dengue cases in the bordering industrial belt of Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh (BBN) with 55 cases having been reported this season. The problem was more pronounced in the Baddi and the Barotiwala industrial belts where cleanliness was a major issue.

Four fresh cases of dengue have come to fore from the villages in the Baddi and Barotiwala area while about 55 cases have emerged from the BBN belt this season till now, Block Medical Officer, Nalagarh, KD Jassal, said. He said civic authorities had been directed to step up measures like fogging of the vulnerable areas to check spread of the disease. He added that most of the cases pertain to Baddi and Barotiwala where several slums exist.

While the district health authorities have been keeping a watch on the disease prevalence, efforts to contain the disease in the industrial belt have met with limited success.

Medical Officer Health, Dr NK Gupta, said a total 101 dengue cases had been detected in Solan district this season. He added that the disease was under control in Parwanoo this year. More than 1,000 cases had surfaced last year. Given its alarming level last year, the health authorities had been directed to invoke the provisions of the Epidemic Disease Act to penalise people who had failed to check the spread of the disease causing mosquitoes in Parwanoo last year.

He informed that 17 cases had come to fore in Nalagarh and 38 overall in Baddi while 46 others had witnessed at the regional hospital Solan this season. With lack of coordination between the municipal areas and the panchayats areas in the BBN, it has become relatively difficult to contain the disease there.