PESHAWAR: Chief Secretary Dr Kazim Niaz has issued instructions for establishment of dengue surveillance centres at district level to deal with the mosquito-borne ailment effectively.

He issued the directives at a meeting of the oversight committee for control of dengue, which he chaired on Tuesday, according to a statement. He said that dengue season was round the corner and there should be full preparation to safeguard lives of the people against the preventable disease.

Secretaries of home and tribal affairs, local government, health, higher education, information, irrigation, relief and rehabilitation departments, besides director general of health services and director health for merged areas attended the meeting, which was briefed by Health Secretary Yahya Akhunzada.

The health secretary informed the meeting that anti-dengue campaign had been started across the province and 24,000 rapid testing kits had been dispatched to all the districts.

He said that awareness activities and trainings of the relevant staff had already been completed but due to the coronavirus pandemic their attention was focused on its prevention and control presently.

The health secretary said that process of recruitment of entomologists was in progress while the purchase of larvicide was also in pipeline.

Dr Kazim Niaz said that a dengue cell comprising officers from public health engineering, agriculture and other departments should be established at district level that would be responsible to help out the health department in coordinating and organising the anti-dengue campaign. This cell will report to the respective deputy commissioners on daily basis.

He also said that public health engineering department would ensure regular supply of drinking water so that the people might not reserve water in their homes that was a great source of development of larva.

The local government department was directed to ensure spray of larvicide in the stagnant water while all the government functionaries told that they would be responsible for keeping their office premises dry so that growth of larva could be checked.

Dr Kazim instructed the information secretary to prepare an aggressive communication strategy and launch a widespread awareness campaign on print, electronic and social media so that all precautionary measures could be taken to check the dengue well in time.

Published in Dawn, April 1st, 2020