Staff Reporter :
Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal on Wednesday said, the government will carry out anti-Aedes mosquito drives throughout the year to protect country’s people from the mosquito-borne deadly dengue disease.
“We will continue anti-dengue drive throughout the year. The government will take all out measures to control the menace,” the minister said.
Kamal was talking to reporters after a meeting of the cabinet committee on economic affairs.
The cabinet committee on economic affairs in the meeting approved a proposal to directly buy the instruments to control mosquito and insecticide to carry out the anti-mosquito drive by Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC).
The cabinet committee also allocated Tk 5.32 crore for buying 200 fogger machines, 150 hand-run machines and 40,000 litres insecticide (5% malathion) for controlling the two mosquito-borne diseases Dengue and Chikungunya.
A 13-year-old girl has died of dengue fever in a city hospital.
The incident occurred around 7am on Wednesday.
The deceased, Isra Taskin Asmita, was an eighth grader in Dhaka’s Viqarunnisa Noon School and College.
She was on life support for six days, he added.
The official death count from dengue till September 4 is 57. The unofficial death toll is about 131, so far.
A total of 820 dengue patients have been admitted to different hospitals across Bangladesh in the last 24 hours.
Among them, 345 patients were admitted in Dhaka, and 475 in districts outside Dhaka. Dengue, a mosquito-borne virus, spreads among humans through its carrier Aedes mosquito.
The Health Emergency Operation Center and Control Room of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), in a press release issued on Wednesday, said the number of patients currently undergoing treatment in government and private hospitals in the country were 3,588.
A total of 57 dengue patients have died across Bangladesh from January 1 till September 4, according to their own collected data. However, the unofficial death toll is reported to be at 131, so far.
As many as 1,989 patients are currently receiving treatment in 41 government and private hospitals in Dhaka, whereas 1,599 people are undergoing treatment outside Dhaka, the DGHS data said.
Since January 1 till September 4, a total of 73,565 people have been affected by dengue.
Among those admitted, a total of 69,785 have been released from their respective hospitals and clinics after treatment.
