No dengue epidemic, all under control: BBMP health officer

Bengaluru: “Is there an epidemic outbreak in the city? No! So far, only 350 confirmed cases of dengue have been reported in the city, but that’s hardly a big number. We have everything under control,” claimed Dr Lokesh, BBMP health officer.

Although the number of dengue cases is steadily increasing in the city with monsoon showers picking up pace, the callous BBMP is doing what it always does the best - brush things under the carpet! While BBMP workers should have been actively engaged in preventing mosquito-borne diseases with onset of monsoon, the civic agency has hardly taken any substantial measures to curb diseases like dengue and chikungunya.

In the rainy season, the BBMP should have taken action to prevent fresh water stagnation in open, vacant plots, conduct larvae survey and eliminate the breeding zones identified during the survey.  But little has been on this front.

However Dr Lokesh said teams have been formed across all 198 wards to conduct larvae survey and spray chemicals. “We have formed a team of 3 gangmen in old wards and team of 5 men in new wards. Since the larvae has a 7-day life cycle, our workers are visiting open places like bus stops, vacant plots and other places identifying breeding zones. The survey is an ongoing process and will continue till September,” he maintained.

But city residents claim there are little signs of such measures being carried out. Shiraksh, a resident of Ittamadu near AGS Layout, remarked, “The joke is always on us with the BBMP. My neighbour suffered from dengue-like fever and we requested our local BBMP engineers to spray chemical in our locality. But even after our repeated requests, they didn't bother to take action.”

Water stagnation
The BBMP, which has taken up various awareness programmes to educate citizens about mosquito-borne diseases, has urged Bengalureans to prevent water stagnation in open areas. “It could be drains or footpaths in front of your house or a vacant plot next to your house. Or even an open place like bus stand or market. We need citizens' help to remove water stagnation. Our officials can't be everywhere all through the day and we need citizens help," said Muzahid Pasha, chairman, BBMP Standing Committee (Health).

Is WHO rule coming in the way?  
Although the BBMP should have actively taken up fogging to curb mosquito menace in the city, the BBMP maintained that as per the World Health Organisation guidelines, the civic agency was not supposed to take up fogging, if no cases of dengue were reported in a locality. “In slums or sparsely populated areas we are sometimes forced to take up fogging before dengue cases are reported. We would otherwise not recommend fogging as it’s highly dangerous to people with respiratory ailments. Fogging is not always considered as a preventive measure,” Lokesh said.