All-out effort necessary to contain dengue epidemic

It is very dismaying to note that as dengue is now wreaking havoc in most parts of the country and the number of patients are increasing alarmingly with concomitant spike in the demand for DNS saline, dishonest people in drug business are selling the 100-taka saline at a price up to 500 taka, claiming that there is a crisis of the saline. Reportedly, this fraud with this essential DNS saline for dengue patients has been found in the port city of Chattogram. The saline could not be found in the pharmacies in front of Chittagong Mother and Child Hospital and Chittagong Medical College Hospital. But if you are able to pay Tk 300-500, you can get it after many requests.

Clearly, it is now urgent to carry out an investigation if there is a real crisis of DNS saline in the pharmacies of Chattogram against the claim that there is no supply of DNS saline for the past one week. Until now, various pharmaceutical companies have been providing this saline, but they have stopped the supply as dengue patients have increased.
It has been reported that the District Administration and Department of Drug Administration conducted raids on Chattogram’s largest wholesale drug market, Hazari Gali, on July 25, but reportedly the pharmacy owners ran away after hearing the news of the magistrate’s arrival. It is also possible that since the drug companies may think of increasing the price on this pretext of unavailability, the necessity of investigating into the matter officially becomes all the more important.

This year this viral disease has appeared with a ferocity that has broken the past records both in terms of hospitalisation and deaths. For the last couple of years, dengue has become a round-the-year problem in Bangladesh with infection rate highest in the monsoon. Hence it has become also urgent to develop a vaccine against this viral disease. Of late, the vice chancellor of BSMMU has, very positively, urged the researchers there to start work on that. It is hoped this task of developing a dengue vaccine would be taken very seriously to save lives.
It is a pity that in Bangladesh where poor patients do not get treatment for various diseases because of poverty, even the inadequate allocation of money that the sector receives as the health budget could not be used effectively and is returned.