PANAJI
The Directorate of Health Services is gearing to step up its outreach to get local communities on board in the fight against dengue which last year (2003) saw a sharp spike in cases in the later part of the monsoon and post-monsoon months between September and December.
"It is crucial for the community to get involved. Keep their surroundings clean and free from puddles of water and also ensure there are no mosquito breeding conditions indoors in their homes. Even 5 ml of water is enough. Stored water must be emptied every seven days," said Dr Kalpana Mahatme, who heads the national vector borne disease control programme cell of the DHS.
In 2023, Dr Mahatme and her team were on their toes rolling out multiple strategies to arrest the sporadic clusters across the State where cases of dengue were emerging.
In September last year, cases spiked by nearly 100 per-cent as the last monsoon month went virtually dry. Goa had reported 113 cases in the month as against just 65 in the same month in 2022.
The trend continued in October and peaked in November, when cases spiked by nearly 200 per-cent year-on-year before the graph began to ebb in December.
The State has officially recorded three deaths attributed to dengue in 2023 -- one child and two senior citizens. Mahatme said, while dengue solely was the cause of death in the case of the child, the two seniors who fell victim had multiple comorbidities.
"However, if the patient had tested positive for dengue and dies, the death is counted as a ''dengue death'," Mahatme said.
Asked what the strategy would be this year when the monsoons hit in May-June, Mahatme said the challenge in the fight against the spread of dengue lies in ensuring mosquito breeding sites in residential neighbourhoods are sanitised.
Currently, the DHS team is busy holding short training sessions for its own field staff who will fan out across the State in the pre-monsoon months of April-May to hold awareness programmes and engage the community in anti-dengue measures.
"Last year we did get support from civic bodies in urban areas and the panchayats in villages who provided us with labour force and other logistics for the awareness programmes," Dr Mahatme said, adding that this year the DHS is hoping to involve local elected representatives including councillors and panchas to help them reach out to maximum people.
Globally meanwhile, over half a million dengue cases and over 100 dengue-related deaths were reported globally in the first four weeks of the current year. World Health Organisation (WHO) reported.
The cumulative number of 5.5 lakh suspected cases show an increase of 189% against the figure of the same period last year, according to WHO's epidemiological bulletin released in the first week of February. Much of the upsurge is accounted for by Brazil, it adds.
