Special drive in Kolkata, neighbouring districts to tackle dengue

A special drive will be undertaken in Kolkata, and its neighbouring Howrah, Hooghly and North 24 Parganas districts for spraying larvicides to tackle the dengue outbreak, officials said on Tuesday.

The decision was taken at a high-level meeting chaired by Chief Secretary HK Dwivedi at the state secretariat. Senior officials, including those of the civic bodies in these districts, were present. "Additional teams have already been deployed in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation area to further intensify vector-source reduction and spraying of larvicides. Now, additional rounds of house-to-house visits are sanctioned for the affected urban areas," the official said.

All hospitals have been instructed to operationalise 24X7 fever clinics, he said.

The district magistrates of Howrah, Hooghly and North 24 Parganas will review the dengue prevention measures with the councillors of civic bodies seeing a surge in cases, the official said.

A Health Department official said the rate of transmission has stabilised following a minimal decrease in the test positivity rate.

"Larval density is also on the decline," he said.

On Tuesday, there were 932 active dengue cases in the state. The state government is yet to publish the dengue fatality figures for this season.