KASUR, Nov 9: The outbreak of dengue fever in Lahore and elsewhere in the country failed to make the tehsil government and local health officials to adopt precautionary measures.

The Kasur tehsil, covering more than 50 union councils, has so far fumigated only five UCs with a single team comprising not over half a dozen TMA employees.

Besides, the slow pace of fumigation, the citizens have decried that the tehsil administration has made a wrong selection of UCs for fumigation.

The tehsil government has selected UCs 1 to 5 due to worse hygienic conditions where heaps of garbage and tannery waste are found.

While the fact of the matter is that the targeted kind of mosquito breeds rather in clean water like containers, buckets, drums, tanks, flower vases, water coolers and stagnant rainwater.

Prof M. Sharif Bhatti holds the opinion that the tehsil government should have taken the assistance of medical experts before conducting aerial and ground spray.

According to a WHO report, the people with high risk of contracting dengue fever are children, travelers and tourists while adults residing in endemic areas are also susceptible to the disease. The tehsil government has ignored the areas like bus stands, railway stations, parks, recreational spots, schools and cinema houses where people are more at risk of dangerous mosquitoes.

Kasur Nazim Agha Naveed Hashim had announced in a meeting that insecticides worth Rs0.8 million purchased for the spray during the summer and the rainy season would now be utilised for the eradication of mosquitoes. Health experts said that the insecticides purchased one year ago had lost their efficacy and it could hardly inflict any harm to the kind of mosquito causing dengue fever.

When contacted, tehsil nazim Agha Navid Hashim denied any discrimination as far as fumigation was concerned and claimed that the selection of UCs was based on numerical order.

He said that District Nazim Rana Muhammad Hayat and EDO (Health) Dr Jamil Ahmed were providing him every help in this respect.