RAWALPINDI: After a sharp increase in the dengue cases, District Coordination Officer (DCO) Talat Mehmood Gondal has ordered an intensive fogging across the city and formed special teams to focus the affected areas and collect the dengue larva.

“The government is adopting a zero tolerance policy on the issue of dengue and no negligence on part of any person/official will be tolerated,” said the DCO at a meeting on Friday.

He said the government was making all-out efforts to overwhelm the outbreak of dengue in the district for which all the departments had been put on high alert.

He said officials of all the departments should work together to eliminate the dengue.

“All the dengue surveillance teams should visit the affected areas and recover dengue larva as much as possible because in this way dengue can be controlled,” Mr Gondal added.

He ordered the officials concerned to initiate legal action against headmasters of all those schools where the dengue larva had been found during an inspection.

The DCO said only joint and collective efforts of officials of all the departments can make the government able to eliminate dengue. He also urged the citizens to play their role in controlling the outbreak of dengue by adopting precautionary measures.

Meanwhile, Holy Family Hospital (HFH)’s Medical Superintendent Dr Raja Shafique told Dawn that during the Eid holidays more than 12 dengue patients arrived in the hospital from the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad.

He said the number of patients was increasing with each passing day as the dengue virus type-4 had been reported from different parts of the city and adjoining areas.

He said the medical care for the patients had been improved but there was still a need to create awareness among the citizens about the safety measures.

He said a clean environment and safety measures would save the citizens from the disease.

A senior official told Dawn that the local administration failed to launch an anti-dengue campaign between February and August and as a result there had been an increase in the number of dengue cases in September.

He said anti-dengue spray was not carried out in most of the areas from where dengue patients had reached hospitals last year.

Published in Dawn September 17th, 2016