The government failed to effectively control Aedes mosquitoes; instead they are shifting blame on the country’s people and imposing unethical fines on households.
Corruption watchdog Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) said it is unfortunate that the dengue issue did not get both the political and administrative importance.
Despite clear signs of increasing cases this year, the government lacked a well-defined strategy for mosquito control and often took sporadic and superficial actions.
The WHO’s specific guidelines and strategies for conducting mosquito-control activities were not adhered to.
The government organisations responsible for these tasks displayed a lacklustre performance and, in some instances, avoided taking responsibility altogether.
A TIB study stated that Bangladesh ranked third worldwide in the number of dengue cases, but it held the top position for the highest death rate until October 22 this year.
The total number of dengue cases this year till October 22 is 25,69,746 in Brazil, 2,57,089 in Peru, 2,40,097 in Bangladesh, 1,50,140 in Mexico, 1,40246 in Bolivia, 1,23,093 in Argentina, 1,03,002 in Nicaragua and 94,198 in India.
Meanwhile, the death rate in Bangladesh was 0.5 per cent, 0.04 per cent in Brazil, 0.4 per cent in Philippines and 0.1 per cent in India.
TIB highlighted several reasons for the high death rate, such as insufficient hospital manpower in comparison to patient numbers, delayed virus diagnosis, false negatives in NS1 tests, a lack of dengue prevention and control efforts, and inadequate medical facilities outside of Dhaka.
Sadly, the treatment costs had increased 10 times higher due to a lack of facilities in government hospitals.
A dengue patient has to spend Tk 7,142 per day on an average in government hospitals while it is Tk 70,000-80,000 in private hospitals, it added.
TIB also found though Dhaka city corporations spending Tk 1,080 crore over the past 11 years, they were unable to effectively control mosquitoes due to their failure to apply insecticides in field levels following WHO guidelines, take effective measures to eliminate Aedes mosquito breeding sites between January and April, and conduct door-to-door Aedes mosquito control efforts.
Negligence in assessing the efficacy of insecticides in various city corporations and municipalities are one of the worst facts of preventing dengue menace.