CANACONA
With an alarming number of nearly 70 dengue cases reported in Gaondongrim village and a few other cases in other parts of Canacona taluka over the past 5 weeks, health officials have been on their toes in relentless drives every day to tackle the disease. They have now claimed that dengue is now on the decline in the taluka.
“Canacona has presently accounted for 70 dengue cases, with almost all infections, barring a few cases elsewhere, detected in Gaondongrim village,” said Canacona Health Officer Dr Jose Tavares.
“With the active cooperation of Deputy Collector, Block Development Officer, Health Staff/Officials, various teams are working very hard, not leaving anything to chance and have been regularly conducting cleanliness drives not only in the affected areas, but targeting all the surroundings and neighbourhood places besides carrying out fumigation of the areas.”
“We are on the field advising people to stop storing water in any form. The result is, there is a decline of the cases, and nowadays, only 1-2 case is being reported, and the infections are mostly from Gaondongrim village,” Dr Tavares added.
According to Dr Tavares, health staff has been working tirelessly and have formed different teams in coordination with the anganwadi workers/sevikas, government primary teachers to conduct awareness visits and cleanliness drives across the taluka. “No serious case of dengue has been reported so far in the taluka, and it takes around 7-8 days for the patient to recover from dengue fever,” said Dr Tavares.
“There have been one dengue case each at Amone (Poinguinim) and Loliem, besides two cases in a single house at Palolem. These patients have recovered and there are no dengue infections reported from elsewhere in the taluka, except for Gaondongrim.”
“Following relentless drives and precautionary measures, the virus seems to be on the decline. With our efforts and the cooperation of residents, we expect to stop further dengue infections in Canacona soon,” Dr Tavares said.
Dr Tavares said that due to unavailability of sufficient water in summer, people began storing water in open tanks, which led to the first case of dengue on May 21.
“With great difficulty, we managed to persuade people not to store water in the open and these water storage habits were discarded only when the monsoon began. But by then, dengue began to spread in the taluka.”
