Community participation important in controlling dengue: Mathur

The government cannot reach every household to control dengue, therefore community participation is “very” important to control the disease, said Dr Ravi Prakash Mathur, additional director, rural health.

Speaking at the daylong day workshopondengue,attendedby medical experts from various parts of the country, Mathur said that active surveillance and anti larvae activities are also important to fight the mosquito-borne viral disease.

Stressing on the community participation, he said people should not allow water to stagnate, regularly clean trays under flowerpots, water tray underneath refrigerator and change water in pots kept for birds.

Dr Paresh Shah, scientist from the National Institute of Virology of Pune, said that earlier dengue would be reported in Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, but now the disease has spread to other parts of the country including Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Gujarat. He talked about the kinds of dengue, symptoms and diagnosis in detail at the meet. Dr Shah said that case fatality rate (CFR) of dengue in India was 3.3% in 1996, which has come down to 0.2% in 2017.

Sharing data of the disease, Dr Mathur said that in Rajasthan 4,043 cases of dengue were reported in 2015, including seven deaths.

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