A surge in dengue fever is feared in Dhaka and other parts of Bangladesh due to the lingering monsoon rains, which are creating ideal breeding conditions for mosquitoes in the absence of effective efforts by the agencies concerned to control the vector-borne disease.
Entomologists said that for the failure of agencies responsible the dengue situation was already out of control, adding that the situation would deteriorate further after the rains.
They said that rains during monsoon were a natural and regular phenomenon but every year dengue took a huge toll while the authorities failed to find any sustainable solution to the problem over the decades.
A prolonged rain creates more mosquito breeding spots on rooftop, parking, roads, and other spaces. When the vector is present in additional breeding spaces, aedes population spikes and increases dengue cases, they explained.
Touhid Uddin Ahmed, former chief scientific officer at the Institute of Epidemiology Disease Control and Research, said that the agencies concerned, city corporations, and other local government bodies were not doing anything effective to control dengue.
鈥榃e now wait for dengue to go away naturally,鈥� he said, adding that between July and September dengue聽 took a huge toll and it came to subside naturally when winter started.
Dhaka South City Corporation chief health officer Nishat Parvin said that because of rains they could not carry out fogging operations to kill adult mosquitoes, otherwise they sprayed larvicide twice in a week.
鈥楳osquitoes breed inside houses more, but we spray only in public spaces,鈥� she said, adding that public awareness was more important in controlling dengue.
However, entomologist at the National Institute of Preventive and Social Medicine Golam Sarwar said, practically the mosquito controlling agency is not doing anything pragmatic.
He explained that the city corporations did not have any research on how to control mosquito, no data to analyse if there was any change in the vector, in the database, and no strategy to control mosquito.
The city corporations are just following a traditional old practice, which is not scientific or not tested, he added.
Amid the situation, the Directorate General of Health Services reported that at least 375 patients with dengue fever were admitted to hospitals across the country during the 24 hours till Tuesday morning.
Including the latest hospital admissions, this year a total of 15,585 people were hospitalised and 58 people died of dengue.
Of them, 5,289 people were hospitalised in the first 15 days of July while 16 others died of dengue at the same time.
Besides, 1,161 people were hospitalised in January, 374 in February, 336 in March, 701 in April, 1,773 in May, and 5,951 in June.
Over the same period, 10 people died of dengue in January, three in February, seven in April, three in May and 19 in June.
Dengue has been arising as a serious public health concern in the country over past several years.
The first dengue outbreak was officiallly reported in the country in 2000 when 93 people died and 5,551 patients were hospitalised, according to DGHS data.
Dengue killed 1,705 people and sent 3, 21,179 others to hospitals in 2023 alone against 853 deaths and 2, 44,246 hospitalisation between 2000 and 2022, the DGHS data show.
Past year, the country witnessed a severe dengue outbreak that resulted in 575 deaths and 101,214 reported cases. A total of 1,00,040 patients recovered during the period.
Entomologists observed that controlling dengue turned to be more difficult this year because a large number of dengue cases were reported from villages.
They said that the local government bodies in districts were not equipped to fight with mosquito and in rural settings it was not easy to control them.
In Bangladesh, the city corporations have health wings which conduct anti-mosquito drives, including spraying insecticides and fogging. However, other local government bodies like municipalities and union parishads of the country have no such mechanisms.
The Bangladesh Meteorological Department said that in Bangladesh monsoon started in May 24. Since then, the ongoing rain is one of the third prolonged rain incidents.
The BMD estimated that monsoon might continue till October this year.