Dengue control: Sprays to be completed before February 10

Secretary chairs meeting to review preventive measures.

LAHORE:

Health Secretary Mohammad Jehanzeb Khan has directed officials to complete two rounds of surveillance and spray at the district level before February 10 to kill dengue mosquito larvae.

Presiding over a meeting at his office on dengue control on Monday, Khan also told officials that women health workers should keep up a door-to-door campaign to raise awareness of the deadly virus.

It was decided at the meeting that the Health Department will train doctors from Azad Kashmir and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in dengue surveillance, response and patient management. Lahore District Coordination Officer Ahad Cheema gave a briefing on preventive measures taken against dengue.

The health secretary said that Pakistani doctors recently trained in Thailand and Sri Lanka should host workshops at the Institute of Public Health (IPH) to train district level staff. He directed the IPH dean to monitor the training.

Health Director General Dr Aslam Chaudhry told the meeting that a dengue control plan “on the pattern of the polio campaign” had been prepared and the process of surveillance and insecticide spray had begun.

Dengue Expert Advisory Group Chairman Dr Faisal Masood said that the training of doctors at all teaching hospitals had been completed and private practitioners had been issued guidelines on how to treat dengue patients. He stressed the need to develop a system to collect reliable data on dengue patients from general practitioners and family physicians. He directed the Punjab Information Technology Board to develop software for online reporting of dengue cases by private practitioners by January 15.

The health secretary told department officials to quickly fill vacant positions among sanitary staff.

Special Health Secretary Dawood Khan Bareach, Additional Secretary (Technical) Dr Anwar Janjua, Nishter Medical College Principal Prof Inam, and the deans of the Institutes of Public Health in Lahore, Gujranwala, Faisalabad and Rawalpindi also attended the meeting.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 3^rd, 2012.