Jamshedpur, July 20: Dengue is spreading across the steel city. While the doctors in the city blame the rise in dengue cases to the deteriorating hygiene in the city, the district health department has decided to extend the dengue action plan, as seven fresh cases of dengue was reported.
According to officials at the civil surgeon office, the areas from where the dengue cases were reported the most include Bagbera, Kitadih, Bhuiyandih, Mango, Parsudih, Sakchi and Sidhgora. The anti-larval operation by the dengue action plan teams are focusing these areas while carrying out the operation.
However, the resurfacing of dengue positive cases has prompted the East Singhbhum district health department to direct the district filaria for a change in strategy adopting to counter vector (Aedes Aegypti) menace.
The department which earlier used to only spray larvicidal apart from undertaking cleanliness exercise will be opting for destroying unused containers (identified vector breeding centers) in the affected areas and educating people on not allowing water to stagnate in residential areas.
The steel city witnessed the first causality due to dengue after a 16-year-old boy died of vector-borne disease. The victim Anmol Kandulna, a class 11 student of Kendriya Vidyalaya and a resident of Loco Colony under Parsudih police station was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit ( ICU) of Tata Motors Hospital in Telco. He was referred from the Railway Hospital in Khasmahal with high fever and low blood pressure on Monday afternoon to Tata Motors Hospital. He died at the hospital last night around 9.30 pm.
“Most of these vector-related cases have been reported from slum areas located in the periphery of the city since monsoon arrived here about three weeks ago,” said an OPD doctor at MGM hospital. Out of the 520-bed capacity, 120 are reserved for the medicine ward, said hospital officials.
Notably, Singhbhum is a malaria-prone area, thousands of people, mostly the local villagers fall victim to this vector-borne disease every year.
An unspecified number of people also die of the disease. Absence of adequate medical centres in the interiors of the twin districts of Singhbhum and Seraikela-Kharsawan district, the malaria continues to spread unabated. Because many of the villagers living in remote areas fail to come to a primary health centre (PHC) or sub-centre where the facility of getting blood test and obtaining medicine has been provided by the state health department.
He went on to add that Dengue spreads through the bites of Aedes mosquito, which breeds in small collection of fresh water in and around houses. The job of identifying such sites and destroying breeding once every week can only be possible with the active participation of the family members.
�We need to improve awareness and active participation in the community so that we are able to bring down the mosquito density to such a low level that the risk of anyone contracting dengue is eliminated,� he noted.