Dengue: Districts asked to form monitoring teams

kolkata: In the wake of a steep rise in dengue cases in some pockets of Bengal, the state Health department has asked various districts to form a monitoring team which will intensify the surveillance against the vector borne diseases. It will also share data with health department officials of their respective districts.

The Chief Medical Officer of health in the districts will communicate with Swasthya Bhawan and update the senior officials about the day-to-day monitoring.

It may be mentioned here that more than 190 places across Bengal have been identified as dengue-malaria prone zones. State government has already asked all the concerned civic bodies to carry out a home-to-home survey in those places falling under the identified spots. The civic employees have already started collecting larvae samples on a random basis from the houses which are there in the affected zones.

Mapping had earlier been conducted by the district health departments and the civic bodies to identify the spots where dengue malaria cases were reported in large numbers in the past few years.

A survey was performed in all the districts including the health districts.

Places have been identified from North 24-Parganas, South 24-Parganas, Howrah and Hooghly and various pockets in Kolkata as dengue-malaria prone areas. In the past two years the dengue malaria cases remained comparatively low in Bengal.

State government has already cleared a fund of Rs 16.25 lakh for procuring kits. Initially, five hospitals will buy serotype testing kits. They are SSKM Hospital, North Bengal Medical College, Murshidabad Medical College, Midnapore Medical College and the School of Tropical Medicine each will get around Rs 3.25 lakh for procuring kits.

The vector control cell of the Health department has been collecting data from all the districts on a regular basis and monitoring the situation.

The district Health officials have already been asked to strengthen surveillance to ensure that there is no accumulated water in any places. The state Health department has directed all the government hospitals and laboratories to conduct malaria and

dengue tests if the patients are suffering from fever and other suspected symptoms.