Govt seems to rely on fate to save people from dengue

Unprecedentedly, the death toll from dengue this year has crossed the 1,300 mark on Thursday.

But there is no sign of worry among the relevant authorities including the health ministry and city corporations and municipal authorities.

Compared to the death toll from covid-19 pandemic suffered by Bangladesh, the death toll from dengue epidemic is much less.

Is this the reason why the government does not feel least concerned about dengue?

However, there is a great reason to be troubled as the death toll and total number of infections makes the dengue fatality rate at 0.5 per cent of total infections.

This means that among every 200 dengue infected patients one has succumbed to death.

The month of October is coming to an end and winter is approaching, but according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), at least 1,802 dengue patients were hospitalised across the country on Thursday, making the total number of dengue infection cases at 262,631.

It is very likely dengue infection will continue to rage all through the month of November and there will be a considerable number of cases in the winter months also.

Therefore, dengue is no longer a seasonal monsoon disease and it has become a round-the-year problem for Bangladesh.

But its intensity increases in the monsoon and the following months.

Another great reason for worry is that with each passing year both the number of cases and fatalities are increasing.

If experience of the several years immediately passed is taken into consideration, it is very likely that Bangladesh will have to count more deaths from dengue in the year 2014 or beyond.

As there is no urgency among the health department and authorities responsible for infectious disease management, we cannot but be panicked about the grim prospects from dengue in future.

The list of failures of the government is long enough.

Among these are: it fails to kill Aedes mosquitoes, make people aware of taking precautions against the infection and create available treatment facilities with necessary saline crucial for serious dengue patient management.

If the government does not take up a thorough dengue containment policy now, more and more people will die because of this controllable infectious disease.