Dengue death toll surpasses 900
Staff Reporter :
The death toll from dengue fever this year has crossed the 900-mark as 16 more deaths from the mosquito-borne disease were reported in the 24 hours till Sunday morning.
Sixteen more dengue patients died in 24 hours till this morning, raising the fatalities from the mosquito-borne disease in Bangladesh to 909 this year, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
During the period, 3,008 more patients were hospitalised with the viral fever, DGHS said.
Of the new patients, 812 were admitted to hospitals in Dhaka and the rest outside the capital–indicating a worsening situation across the country.
A total of 10,470 dengue patients, including 3,794 in the capital, are now receiving treatment at hospitals across the country.
So far, the DGHS has recorded 187,725 dengue cases and 176,346 recoveries this year.
This month, Dengue has so far claimed the lives of 316 people across the country. A total of 63,917 cases were also reported during the same period, DGHS added.
As of September 24, the authorities recorded 63, 917 dengue positive cases while 316 deaths from the mosquito-borne disease during the same period.
The prevalence of dengue cases in Bangladesh has increased ten times since last year and the deaths have increased almost thrice, according to a health expert.
“Dengue positive cases have increased ten times and death three times between mid-September, 2022 and mid-September, 2023,” Professor Dr. Md Golam Sharower, Head, Department of Entomology, National Institute of Preventive and Social Medicine (NIPSOM) told a seminar recently.
While presenting the keynote paper, Sharower explained that with global warming, our country’s environmental factors such as temperature, relative humidity and rainfall are increasing, all of which play a key role in increasing the reproductive capacity of the Aedes mosquito.
He said there are unplanned urbanization, industrialization and ancillary activities such as construction of multi-storied buildings blocking waterways, dumping old cars and turning cities into mosquito sanctuaries.
The morphological, biological and behavioral changes that have occurred in Aedes mosquitoes as a result of all our unknown activities in mosquito breeding are highly favorable for Aedes mosquitoes to transmit dengue virus, he elaborated.
According to the DGHS, Bangladesh reported 1,01,354 dengue cases, the second highest since dengue cases were detected in 2000, in 2019, 1,405 cases in 2020, 28,429 cases in 2021 and 62,382 cases in 2022.
It also added that Bangladesh recorded 179 dengue related deaths in 2019, seven deaths in 2020, 105 deaths in 2021 and 281 deaths, the second highest deaths, in 2022.
