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Dengue menace grips city

Boy scouts, girl guides to start cleanliness campaign from today

STAFF CORRESPONDENT
Dengue is spreading in the city at an alarming rate, bringing increasing number of people to hospitals with infection.
Official sources yesterday said since mid-June 427 dengue patients, including those coming from outside, have been hospitalised in the city, with 128 under treatment at the moment.
According to health directorate records, dengue seized 486 people and killed 10 last year, 6,132 and 58 in 2002, 2,430 and 44 in 2001, and 5,551 and 93 in 2000.
But Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) pays little or no attention to the scare, keeping virtually mum on mosquito control issue, experts
alleged and pointed to the need for a survey on Aedes mosquito population which the mayor, however, calls unessential.
DCC Mayor Sadeque Hossain Khoka at a press briefing last week defended his office's position in this respect claiming the yearly allocation the corporation receives for mosquito control to be not enough. He maintains the DCC needs Tk 50 crore a year to keep back mosquito breeding, whereas it now gets Tk 17 crore for the purpose.
Talking to The Daily Star the mayor said, "The survey is unnecessary. Our findings show only a few areas like Kalabagan and Kathalbagan and some pockets of Gulshan and Banani have Aedes population. But I must repeat that
dengue control is not a responsibility of the DCC but of the society as a whole."
Pointing out that the Aedes mainly lives in containers people use in their houses, Khoka said residents of the Aedes-populated areas should be more aware and active, exercise more caution and take more responsibility in keeping their households clean.
The DCC mayor said the public health department and the district administration of Dhaka have significant roles to play in checking Aedes breeding. "I have written to the LGRD ministry to form a coordination to fight the mosquito menace, particularly of Aedes. Without co-ordinated efforts, the
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DCC alone cannot curb mosquito population."
He also mentioned that some areas including Bashundhara, low-lying areas of Badda and Dhaka Cantonment in the city do not come under the DCC's jurisdiction, and said if mosquito control programmes were not launched simultaneously in those areas the city corporation's efforts alone would not be effective.
The mayor said he has initiated a programme to aware people on Aedes and keeping their houses and the adjacent areas clean to prevent the dengue carriers from laying eggs.
Under the programme, five-member teams of boy scouts and girls guides will go from door to door in the city from July 15 to motivate and help people clear their houses of empty containers, the most favourite breeding ground of Aedes mosquitoes. The DCC has already trained 4,500 boys and girls for the 15-day operation.
The mayor also stated that the DCC now has sufficient insecticide for spraying in the city areas.