With dengue threatening to assume epidemic proportions in the provisional state capital, the health department has inducted the medical students in the anti dengue drive. On the instruction of the department teams of students of Government Doon Medical College (GDMC) have started visiting the residential areas. These  teams are creating awareness in the masses about dengue and measures they should take to reduce its menace. The director general (DG) state health services, Dr R K Pandey said 21 teams consisting of 169 officers, employees and Asha workers are working in Dehradun for conducting door to door surveys. He claimed that 4000 houses were surveyed by these teams on Thursday. Dr Pandey said that team found larvae of dengue spreading mosquito in 200 houses. He added that 65 patients of the disease are undergoing treatment at GDMC Hospital while 29 are admitted in Gandhi centenary eye hospital. The DG said that dengue patients are being top priority in treatment and facility of ELISA test is made available in five hospitals.

He said that the students of GDMC are organising street plays to create awareness about the disease. The menace of dengue is showing no sign of receding as 13 new cases of the disease were reported by district health department of Dehradun on Thursday. With them the total number of dengue patients in Dehradun since the outbreak of the disease has jumped to 648.

The district vector borne diseases officer Subhash Joshi said that 623 patients are the residents of Dehradun while 25 are natives of other districts.

He said that teams of health department and Municipal Corporation of Dehradun (MCD) are visiting the affected areas and activities like fogging and spread of insecticides are being undertaken apart from spreading awareness on preventive measures to be adopted for the disease.