In a classic example of ‘Darkness under the lamp, gross negligence is being witnessed by officials of state health department as they are finding desert coolers infested with larva of dengue spreading mosquitoes in the offices like state secretariat and police headquarters. On Saturday, the teams of health department visited Vikas Bhawan, Police headquarters and district jail, Dehradun. The district vector borne diseases officer, Subhash Joshi said that the teams found the larvae of the Aedes mosquito in the accumulated water of the desert coolers in these places. He said that the officers concerned have been informed about the cause and spread of dengue and the water accumulated in coolers was decanted.  Joshi said that the coolers these days should be used without water.

He said that the team informed that the water should not be allowed to accumulate at any place in the offices. Interestingly the health department teams had found larva of the dengue spreading mosquito in state secretariat on Friday.

“What is shocking that the larvae of dengue spreading mosquito are being found from the secretariat  and police headquarters which shows that either the officials who are heading the administration and police force are either ignorant or are apathetic,’’ said a health department personnel.

12 new dengue patients reported 

The dengue menace is continuing unabated in the Doon valley and surrounding areas. On Saturday, 12 new cases of the dengue were reported by the district health authorities.

The district vector borne diseases officer Subhash Joshi said that with these cases, the number of dengue affected patients in Dehradun has reached 415.

He added that 403 patients of the disease are the residents of Dehradun while 12 are residents of other districts.

He said that team of health department 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.

He said that people should ensure that the breeding places of mosquitoes inside their homes and vicinity are destroyed.

The symptoms of Dengue are persistently high fever, rashes, headache and pain in the joints. In the acute cases the platelets number decrease drastically which could prove fatal for the patient.

The Tiger mosquito (called due to the characteristic stripes on its body) is responsible for transmitting the virus from one person to another.

Rainy season is most conducive for rapid growth of Tiger 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.