Another mosquito control programme from tomorrow

The Health Ministry yesterday said it would launch a three-day mosquito control programme from Thursday (03) to minimise the increase in the insect density due to intermittent rains.

Ministry Spokesman, Prasanna Adhikari said the number of dengue patients had topped 115,605 while the death toll had risen from 301 last Wednesday (27) to 327 by the beginning of this week.

Adhikari said that during the mosquito control programme (MCP) carried out from 27th to the 29 of last month 15,486 premises had been inspected. About 19,684 of them were found to have mosquito breeding places while 1,343 had mosquito larvae. Red notices had been issued to 3,555 while legal action was taken against the owners of 798 houses and business places.

The spokesman said that according to the National Dengue Control Unit (NDCU) a majority of dengue mosquito larvae (larvae of the Aedes mosquito) had been detected at state institutions, schools and construction sites. Therefore, close attention would be paid to those places. The focus would also be on high risk areas. Namely; Colombo, Gampaha, Kalutara, Ratnapura, Kegalle, Kurunegala, Galle, Matara, Kany and Matale

A total of 17,006,333 places had been inspected under all dengue control programmes that had been carried out during this year. Of them 34,000 places had dengue mosquito larvae. Legal action had been taken against 23,519 of them, he said.

Adhikari said that by the second week of July there had been 8,988 dengue patients, but by the third week of the same month the numbers had decreased to 7,949. By the fourth week the number had come down to 2,484, he added.