Anti-dengue campaign across 36 districts

Surveys are carried out between 9am to 3pm daily.

LAHORE: The environment protection department began an anti-dengue campaign across nine towns of Lahore as well as all 36 districts of the Punjab on February 25.

Five teams, each comprising an assistant director, an inspector and a driver, have been surveying shops, warehouses, car workshops, and nurseries in Lahore for mosquito larvae between 9am and 3pm daily.

According to the inspector in charge of surveying Aziz Bhatti Town, pictures of mosquito larvae are taken with mobile phones and uploaded on to a database controlled by the Information Technology Board at the Arfa Karim Centre. “This is the first time the department is using this technology to keep track of what inspectors do in the field,” he said.



He said mosquito larvae had been spotted in stagnant water but at the same sites no larvae have been spotted so far of the dengue-carrying variety

The inspector said the temperature variation between day and night has increased and eggs laid at night are likely to be killed in the day’s heat. The weather is also not humid enough for dengue larvae to incubate, he said.

The drive will continue for two months.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 4^th, 2013.