Community participation is the only way to prevent dengue in the future
HAVING learnt from past experience,
health officials and the government are
all set tackle the threat of dengue in
Delhi this year. A proceedings of a conference on "Dengue outbreak in Delhi:1996", organised by the Ranbaxy Science Foundation in December 1996,were released by Delhi health minister Harsh Vardhan on May 15, 1997.
Dengue fever led to the death of 453
people in Delhi in 1996. In all, 10,052
cases were reported, revealing gross
inadequacies in prevention and control
methods. Both the government and
major medical institutions such as the
All India Institute of Medical Sciences
(AIIMS) failed to take note of the seriousness of the problem. The situation worsened due to lack of public awareness.
Dengue infections can range from
mild to moderate, while severe cases can
lead to death. Of the four known strains
of the virus - DEN- 1, DEN-2, DEN-3 and
DEN-4 - the DEN-2 strain is responsible
for dengue haemorrhagic fever, the
most severe form of the disease. The
symptoms in the classical form -
dengue fever - are high fever,
headache, pain in the joints and muscles, and an outbreak of rashes.
Participants at the conference stressed the need for prevention of dengue
fever, which is difficult to manage even
under professional supervision. As
V Ramalingswami, National Research
Professor at AIIMS, pointed out, body
fluids need to be replenished up to three
or four times the normal requirement.
The mosquito which transmits the
virus feeds by day and breeds in containers like storage tanks, water coolers and earthen pots. According to V P Sharma,
director of the Malaria Research Centre,
the female mosquito lays 50-100 eggs
every alternate day. Since the eggs are
glued to the surface of the containers,
their removal requires scrubbing. Since
the mosquito has a short life cycle and
does not fly any great distance to feed, it
affects only the nearest available humans.
So the inmates of a house where the
mosquito has been breeding are most
vulnerable to the disease it spreads.
To prevent dengue, breeding sites
should be destroyed and it should be
ensured that the mosquito does not bite
humans. Medical experts opine that a
national surveillance system should be
set up to detect early cases of dengue.
Guidelines for the methods of blood
sample collection, storage and transport
will have to be standardised and made
available to all major hospitals.
Researchers in Thailand are working on
a vaccine that may prove effective
against all the four strains of the virus.
The Colorado State University in the US
has also conducted genetic engineering
on mosquitoes to produce breeds that
resist pathogenic viruses, thus making
them unable to transmit diseases.
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