Six from two districts down with Dengue

After six patients from Nainital and Udham Singh Nagar districts have been detected as down with Dengue, the State Health Department has come into an alert mode to take on the vector-borne disease.

These are the initial cases of the disease this season. The Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) -the confirmatory test for dengue reports of three patients each in Nainital and Udham Singh Nagar district has confirmed the presence of dengue in their samples. The Director General (DG) health services, Dr T C Pant confirmed that six patients have been found positive for the disease. He said that the department has been put on an alert mode to prevent the spread of the disease further.

He said that the people should not allow water to get collected near their households and regularly decant fridges, coolers, pots or cans. Spreading of kerosene or other oils on small water bodies is also effective to destroy the larvae. Dr Pant said that sufficient stock of medicines and equipment needed for the disease have been provided to the districts. 

The Health Department teams have been asked to visit the areas or pockets where chances of spread of the disease are more. These teams are sensitizing the people on ways to prevent the spread of the disease, he said. The department would also undertake door to door survey to identify and eliminate the potential breeding places of the mosquito.

It is worth mentioning here that the Health Department this year has taken an initiative to involve children in the anti- dengue campaign. The school children would be given ‘Dengue Assignment card’ on which the children would mention location of the potential breeding grounds of the mosquito after survey of their locality. 

What is dengue?

Dengue is a viral infection spread by the mosquito Aedes Aezypti popularly known as Tiger Mosquito. The symptoms of the disease are persistent high fever, rashes, headache and pain in the joints. In the acute cases, the platelets number decrease drastically which may prove fatal for the patient.  Rainy season is most conducive for rapid growth of mosquito which can lay about 1200 eggs at a time and 400-500 larvae can emerge from these eggs that take a week’s time to hatch. The mosquito infected with virus thus can increase its number, exponentially infecting large number of people in a short span of time. The female tiger mosquito strikes during the day time and the doctors suggest that the people should wear full -sleeved clothes to prevent mosquito bite.

In Uttarakhand, the disease is more prevalent in Dehradun, Haridwar and Udham Singh Nagar districts.