C T Online Desk: The number of hospitalised dengue patients has continued to rise across the country, with the mosquito-borne viral disease killing 17 people since January.
A total of 4,228 dengue patients were hospitalised so far this year while 1,568 or over 37 per cent of them were reported in the first 19 days of August, according to data of the Directorate General of Health Services.
The highest number of monthly dengue cases hospitalised this year was 1,571 in July, with 737 in June, 163 in May, 23 in April, 20 each in March and February and 126 in January, the official data showed.
Entomologists feared that the rise in dengue infections might continue till October for not taking effective measures since the beginning of the year.
They also pointed out that the official hospitalisation number did not represent the actual situation as the figure came from only 47 private and public health facilities in Dhaka — out of more a thousand facilities.
Entomologist Manjur A Chowdhury said that had the city authorities taken effective measures since the beginning of the year, the situation would have been better.
‘The authorities should have destroyed the breeding spaces of mosquitoes and killed the infected mosquitoes. We fear that dengue might take an alarming turn in the days to come,’ he added.
Referring to a study conducted by the Lancet magazine in 2019, Manjur said that the number of dengue patients might be eight to 10 times the reported figure.
He also advised the city authorities to work for sensitising people to the problem and destroy the breeding grounds of Aedes mosquitoes at the earliest.
Jahangirnagar University zoology professor and vector management expert Kabirul Bashar told New Age that the situation would have been better if the city authorities had taken effective measures since January.
He, however, said that the situation might start improving at the end of September or in the beginning of October.
‘Many dengue patients are not reported in the official count. A large number of cases are treated at home while a big number of hospitals are not covered in the official data,’ he added.
Dhaka Community Hospital administrative officer Moshiur Rahman Choyon on Friday told New Age that a total of 24 dengue patients, including eight children, were undergoing treatment at the hospital as of afternoon on the day.
‘We gave our lists to the health directorate. We do not know why our lists were not included in its account,’ he added.
Al-Raji Hospital Pvt Ltd manager Taibur Rahman said that two dengue patients were being treated there as of Friday afternoon.
There are 390 private clinics and 691 diagnostic facilities in the capital city, according to the Bangladesh Private Clinic Diagnostic Owners Association website.
Of the total hospitalised cases so far this year, 3,522 or 83.30 per cent were reported from the capital city, said a DGHS press release issued on Friday.
The health directorate in a pre-monsoon survey found a higher density of Aedes mosquitoes in Dhaka than other places in April, predicting that the dengue situation would worsen unless preventive steps were taken.
Dismissing experts’ observation about the lack of year-long measures, Dhaka North City mayor Atiqul Islam told New Age that they had indeed taken up year-long programmes to contain the dengue outbreak, adding that this is why the dengue case figure is lower compared with the previous year.
‘We have taken the dengue situation as a challenge. The situation is under control due to the effective measures we have taken, including awareness campaigns, source reduction, spraying larvicides and adulticides in areas with infected patients while our chief health officer is also monitoring the situation very seriously,’ Atiqul explained.
He said that they had also ascertained the number of rooftop gardens under the DNCC jurisdiction.
Atiqul went on to say that they had also applied medicines where WASA meters were fixed in all houses because stagnant water there could provide breeding grounds for Aedes mosquitoes.
‘I also take part in awareness campaigns on every Saturday. We have been doing our job regularly, otherwise there would have been four times the number of patients we saw in the past year,’ he added.
DSCC chief health officer Fazle Shamsul Kabir said that they had begun their activities to contain the breeding grounds of Aedes mosquitoes since February this year, as a result of which the number of cases came down to one-third of the cases in July and August in 2021.
‘The situation is better than that in the past year due to our effective measures. The health authority is providing us with wrong information that creates obstacle to conducting crash programmes against Aedes mosquitoes,’ he added.
He said that they carried out crash programmes in a whole ward when they came to learn that one in the ward was hospitalised with dengue.
Meanwhile, at least 54 more dengue patients were hospitalised across the country in the 24-hour period till Friday morning, of whom 46 were reported from Dhaka city.
A total of 398 dengue cases are still undergoing treatment at different health facilities on the day, with 335 of them being in Dhaka and 63 others outside Dhaka city, according to the release.
As per the official statistics, the mosquito-borne viral disease has killed 17 people in the country since January. Of them, 10 died in Cox’s Bazar and seven in Dhaka city.
One died in June, nine in July and seven in the first 19 days of August, the data showed.
The situation of dengue cases turned alarming in Cox’s Bazar after the capital city this year.
