The agencies concerned across Bangladesh have yet to develop an effective mechanism to identify the spots from where the dengue virus is spreading, undermining the ongoing efforts to control the viral disease and its casualties.
Knowing the exact spots from where the vector for dengue virus, the aedes mosquito, is spreading the germ is the first step in dengue management, entomologists and virologists have said.
The mosquito control programme run by the city corporations and municipalities failing to detect the exact spots is like beating about the bush, they observe.
They have said that over the years the agencies have ignored the critical task of tracing the source from where the infection has been spreading to attack more people in the same area.
They explain that all mosquitos do not carry dengue virus, and once the virus carriers can be traced and decimated, the number of dengue patients will reduce.
But the city corporations and municipalities, which are under the Local Government Division of the local government, rural development and cooperatives ministry, do not have the source detection mechanism and so they are flying blind in carrying out mosquito control drives here and there.
The detection of source spots needs to know where a dengue-infected patient had been when that patient was bitten by mosquitoes carrying the virus, a task resting mainly with healthcare providers at hospitals.
National Institute of Preventive and Social Medicine professor entomologist Golam Sarwar, also a member of the government expert committee to fight against dengue, says that source detection involves recording of patients鈥� case histories, a task that lies mainly with hospitals that are supposed to send the case histories to the agencies concerned.
Hospitals, however, are not doing the task.
The health ministry鈥檚 Directorate General of Health Services, which governs the hospitals and clinics, collects dengue patients鈥� information from major hospitals in Dhaka and other districts, but it rarely collects the patients鈥� infection history and shares the data with the respective local government agencies.
Experts put the dismal situation in pinpointing the virus spreading spots down to the lack of coordination between the health ministry institutions and local government bodies.聽
Former vice-chancellor of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University and also a virology professor Nazrul Islam in a rather stern remark has said that it was important to know where the patient got infected, not his permanent address or things like that.
But the hospital mechanism is to collect the patients鈥� present or permanent addresses, not their detailed infection history, he has added.
鈥楶eople usually start getting fever four days after dengue virus carrying mosquitos bite them,鈥� the professor has said.
鈥楽o it is important to know where the patient was four days earlier from the start of the fever,鈥� he has added.
Health directorate management information system director professor Mijanur Rahman admits that traditionally they do not collect the infection history of the patients.
鈥楰nowing infection history is crucial for dengue fever, I will discuss the issue with agencies concerned,鈥� he says.
Amid the failure to control the infection, dengue patients are still on the rise even in November, more than two months have passed since August, the usual peak season for dengue.
A health directorate press release on Tuesday stated that at least a woman died of dengue and 1,052 other were hospitalised in the past 24 hours till 8:00am.
At least 422 deaths and 82,120 hospitalisations in dengue were recorded as of Tuesday.
In the first 19 days of November, 107 people died of dengue and 20,303 others were hospitalised.
This year, of the deaths, 14 died in January, three in February, five in March, two in April, two in May, eight in June, 12 in July, 27 in August, 80 in September and 134 in October.
Of the hospitalisations this year, 1,055 were reported in January, 339 in February, 311 in March, 504 in April, 644 in May, 798 in June, 2,669 in July, 6,521 in August, 18,097 in September, and 30, 879 in October.
Dengue killed 1,705 people and sent 3,21,179聽 people to hospitals in 2023 alone against 853 deaths and 2,44,246 hospitalisations between 2000 and 2022, the DGHS data showed.
A dengue outbreak was first officially reported in the country in 2000 when 93 people died and 5,551 patients were hospitalised, according to DGHS data.
