Kota DM deploys 11 RAS officers to stop dengue menace

JAIPUR: Kota district administration deployed 11 Rajasthan Administrative Service (RAS) officers to control the spread of dengue fever. It has taken proactive steps by bringing all resources available to take collective steps for preventing spread of the disease.

Till Wednesday, there were 3590 cases of dengue across the state — out of those, 1056 were reported from Jaipur and 1089 were reported from Jaipur.

The medicine wards in hospitals in Kota and also in Jaipur are reporting increased number of dengue and dengue-like illness cases.

"We have mapped high-risk areas in Kota and we are conducting strict monitoring of these areas by deploying RAS officers to prevent spread of the disease further," said Rohit Gupta, district magistrate, Kota.

The district administration has identified 11 high-risk areas in Kota district for dengue. Each high-risk area is being monitored by an RAS officer. In all the high-risk areas, there are NGOs who are helping the district administration teams. Also, there are officials from municipal corporation and civil defence teams, local revenue staff, which are taking collective steps in their high risk areas for dengue.

For the past few days, the teams have also been searching and inspecting hostel rooms of students studying in coaching centres. "The larvae of the mosquito causes dengue breed in clean water, so our teams are working hard to destroy such breeding places for mosquitoes," Gupta said.

As far as fogging is concerned, the district administration arranged a big-size fogging machine, which they have brought on rent. The district administration created a pool of fogging machines available with civic bodies and health department. According to district administration officials, there are 25 fogging machines. "We are conducting intensive fogging by using 10-12 fogging machine in an area to kill the mosquitoes," said Dr Ramjilal Verma, deputy chief medical health officer (CMHO) Kota.

The officials are conducting the fogging in the area in the presence of local counsellor of the area and senior district administration official. The officials have a planned chart of the areas, where fogging is needed.

However, in Jaipur, the district administration claimed that they are closely monitoring dengue fever cases and taking preventing measures. Jaipur district magistrate Siddharth Mahajan said, "We are conducting fogging in the city. Also, we send our team to the area where cases of dengue are reported so that we will be able to detect the cases in early stage."