‘Early diagnosis and no panic, key to fight dengue’

Anyone with fever should immediately consult physicians to check dengue but it is also important not to panic after being diagnosed, stakeholders at a roundtable observed on Monday.

The discussants also said that patients need to be aware that they do not always need to be hospitalised even after being diagnosed with dengue.

Prothom Alo organised the roundtable in association with Labaid group on ways to fight dengue at Karwan Bazar’s CA Bhaban.

Bishwo Shahitto Kendro chairman Abdullah Abu Sayeed criticised the city corporation authorities for not taking proper preventive measures against dengue.

“City corporations should conduct massive cleanliness drives during the pre-monsoon period once and during the monsoon again so that Aedes mosquito cannot lay eggs,” he said.

Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Medical University’s former vice chancellor Nazrul Islam said awareness campaign among the school students will be effective to fight dengue.

MM Akhtaruzzaman, manager of the malaria and dengue programme at the Directorate General of Health Services pointed out different measures they took to fight dengue menace.

Urging city corporations to follow proper waste management, he said, “Unused tyres are responsible for over 20 per cent of Aedes mosquito breeding. Water tanks of under-construction buildings are also responsible for larvae breeding.”

Early diagnosis and prompt treatment is a must to fight dengue, he added.

BSMMU’s child specialist Md Abdul Manna said, “Every patient diagnosed with dengue need not be admitted into the hospital but every patient with dengue symptoms should consult physicians immediately.”

He urged physicians to follow national guidelines to treat patients.

“People should follow preventive measures such as using mosquito nets and wearing full-sleeved clothes,” he added.

Entomologist and Move Foundation chairman Manjur Chowdhury said school children should wear full length pants and socks to protect themselves from mosquito bites.

Cleanliness in and around hospitals and using mosquito nets there should be given utmost important as the number of infective mosquitoes are most in hospitals.

Attendants of patients and physicians are most vulnerable to dengue due to the presence of infective mosquitoes in hospitals, he added.

About a recent report that the insecticide primarily used by the capital’s city corporations named Permethrin has become ineffective, Dhaka South City Corporation’s chief health officer Md Sharif Ahmed said, “Following public opinion against it, both the city corporations conducted meetings three times with higher officials to find an alternative insecticide. We hope we will be able to import alternative insecticides within shortest possible time as it’s not available in our country.”

Several discussants lamented lack of proper research on dengue fever.

“We have lack of research on the issue. We must learn lessons from this year’s outbreak,” State University of Bangladesh’s chief of public health department Nowzia Yasmin said.

Sangita Rahman, mother of a child who suffered from dengue recently, shared her experience.

DGHS line director SM Mostafizur Rahman, BSMMU’s ABM Abdullah, Dhaka Medical College Hospital’s MA Khan and Labaid’s FM Siddique, among others, also spoke at the roundtable.

Prothom Alo associate editor Abdul Quayyum moderated the roundtable.