FROM PAGE 1

adding that a field hospital is ready at Dhaka Medical College Hospital to provide treatment to patients.

If needed, more field hospitals will be established in different parts of the country.

The government yesterday directed private hospitals across the country to provide free treatment to dengue patients in at least 10 percent of their beds, while also mandating discounts of up to 80 percent on dengue-related diagnostic tests.

The directives were issued during Sardar’s meeting on dengue preparedness with representatives from private hospitals, diagnostic centres and private medical college associations.

But entomologists said preparedness cannot depend only on hospital management once infections begin to surge.

They stressed that preventing mosquito breeding before the outbreak season is the most effective way to reduce infections and deaths.

Surveys are crucial for evidence-based decision-making and targeted control measures and should be conducted nationwide across all cities, said Kabirul Bashar, a professor at Jahangirnagar University’s zoology department.

He said they carry out small surveys in different cities and towns for their research and found almost every city in Bangladesh is now affected by dengue.

The survey currently being conducted by DSCC is a positive step, but it should have started earlier to yield better results, he said.

The previous surveys were not very effective as they were not conducted comprehensively across the country, said GM Saifur Rahman, associate professor of the National University of Bangladesh’s zoology department.

The surveys were mainly limited to Dhaka city, which reduced their effectiveness, he said, adding that effective results could have been achieved through representative sampling across the country.

“There needs to be representation from high-infection areas, low-infection areas, and other regions; that is what we call representative sampling.”

Saifur stressed the need for baseline, sentinel, and hotspot surveillance.

Until 2024, the DGHS regularly conducted three entomological surveys every year -- pre-monsoon, monsoon and post-monsoon -- to detect the presence of Aedes mosquito larvae in different areas of the two Dhaka city corporations.

The studies used to be conducted under the Communicable Diseases Control Programme, a component of the fourth Health, Population and Nutrition Sector Programme (HPNSP).

The programme’s tenure expired in June 2024, and the interim government cancelled the proposed fifth HPNSP, creating a financing gap for the work.

Although all three surveys were conducted in 2024, the DGHS could not carry out any survey last year due to a funding crisis, according to DGHS officials.

However, a pre-monsoon survey was conducted last year by the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR).

But neither the DGHS nor the IEDCR has taken any steps to carry out such a survey this year.

Only for the previous year, the health ministry gave the responsibility and budget to IEDCR for the entomological survey, said its director Tahmina Sharmina on May 23.

If the responsibility is given to IEDCR this year too, IEDCR is ready to do the surveys.

Contacted, Prof Halimur Rashid, director (disease control) of DGHS, said they were not carrying out any survey due to a funding crisis after the expiry of the sector programme.

He also appeared to downplay the initiative. “This [survey] is not important. We have to kill all mosquitoes.”

Besides, the DGHS’s task is to ensure curative services, he said, adding that the city corporation should conduct such surveys.

A DSCC official said they completed their survey on May 27 and are now analysing the data.

“We hope to disseminate the data through a press conference within a few days and will take necessary steps based on the survey findings,” he said, seeking anonymity.