News
First a clean-up and then to school
As the New Year dawns and children go back to school next week, an early warning to look out for dengue breeding spots and clear them out goes from the Head of the National Dengue Control Unit (NDCU) and Consultant Epidemiologist Dr. Hasitha Tissera.
“We are working in close collaboration with the Education Ministry and today and tomorrow the ministry has called in parents to help with a school clean-up programme, so that when children get back to their classrooms, the environment will be free of mosquito breeding areas,” he said.
Plans are also underway, the Sunday Times understands, to get schoolchildren to develop a Smartphone App for them, their parents and school authorities to report likely dengue breeding spots as well as pass on information on anyone who has a fever as it is a strong symptom of dengue.
Pointing out that in the recent past it has been found that 30% of the dengue patients are in the school-going age, Dr. Tissera explains that it is “challenging and not easy” to make the school authorities aware and take responsibility to keep the environment as well as sanitary facilities free of breeding spots.
School toilets are a major concern, says Dr. Tissera, urging that there should be specifications for toilets across the country. This is a serious issue and needs to be addressed immediately. Some school toilets are broken and there is water leakage and collection of small pools of water providing ideal spots for the dengue mosquito to lay its eggs. Cleaning the school environment is also another issue, as it is usually done by one person. This is where parents need to get involved and lend a helping hand.
The NDCU is taking measures to empower the school authorities, parents and children to battle dengue, it is learnt.
Stressing that everyone needs to understand the dengue mosquito’s habits clearly, Dr. Tissera says that it is a day-biter and that is why schools need to be careful because at the time the mosquito takes a bite children are in their classrooms or the playground.
If in a class, two children get fever, the first suspect should be dengue, as this viral disease is now endemic to the country. Parents, therefore, should report it immediately because it could be an indicator of a possible cluster. If the NDCU hears of a cluster of cases from a particular school, the authorities of that school would be informed to halt the spread by checking out their premises and destroying any breeding spots. Otherwise, there would be transmission to many more children.
“This could lead to an ‘outbreak’, where a ‘collection’ of patients comes from a single location,” he said.
Among the measures being carried out are:
- A behavioural change among children by inculcating best practices in them to reduce breeding sites through island-wide poster competitions on the theme of a ‘Dengue-free model school’.
- Dedicating more responsibility to parents and teachers so that there would be early identification of a dengue threat and disease clusters among schoolchildren.
- Introduction of waste segregation bags and bins to schools – orange for polythene and plastic; blue for paper; and green for organic waste.
- Children to be encouraged to develop a Dengue Mobile App – to increase awareness among teachers and parents; to report fever among schoolchildren by parents and teachers; and for early identification of outbreaks.
| Dengue an economic burden to health sector | |
| Dengue is a very costly affair, laments Dr. Hasitha Tissera. This is despite the “good” public health system that we have which has 2,600 Public Health Inspectors (PHIs) in 343 Medical Officer of Health (MOH) areas. Dr. Tissera refers to a ‘costing study’ carried out in the ‘epidemic year’ of 2012 in the Colombo district which has a population of 2.3 million in the heavily urbanized Western Province. The study, published in ‘PLOS – Neglected Tropical Diseases’ (a peer-reviewed scientific journal) in February 2016, had found that 10,017 hospitalized dengue cases were reported from secondary care state hospitals in Colombo and accounted for 22.5% of the total reported cases in the country for that year (2012). The findings of the study titled ‘Costs of dengue control activities and hospitalizations in the public health sector during an epidemic year in urban Sri Lanka’ were:
“Our results suggest that dengue poses a major economic burden to the health sector in Sri Lanka,” says Dr. Tissera who was one of the researchers, adding that even though dengue is a public health issue, it is not impossible to control it. Other mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria and filaria have been controlled through strong campaigns and Japanese Encephalitis through vaccination. |