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Dengue epidemic imminent if urgent measures not taken, warns expert
Nearly 4,000 cases of dengue were reported countrywide in the first two weeks of the New Year, with around 60 percent of them in the Western Province, statistics show.
If urgent measures aren’t taken, Sri Lanka will suffer a dengue epidemic like the one experienced in 2017, warned Shilanthi Seneviratne, Consultant Community Physician of the National Dengue Control Unit (NDCU).
Dengue preventive measures underway in Maradana last week. Pic by Lahiru Harshana
The NDCU weekly update reports 3,918 cases up to January 14. Of this, 2,057 suspected dengue cases were in the seven days between January 3 and 9. The difference between the numbers reported in January last year–at 2,122–and this year is significant, Dr Seneviratne pointed out. While the last week of 2021 had 2,026 cases, this shot up by 1.5 percent in just a week.
The highly-populated Western Province continues to be hit hard with 58.3 percent of cases–nearly 6 percent was from the Colombo Municipal Council area and 21.7 percent from other parts of the Colombo district. Gampaha and Kalutara districts followed with 22.2 percent and 8.7 percent of cases, respectively.
Ninety Medical Officer of Health (MOH) areas in Kandy, Jaffna, Mannar, Trincomalee, Batticaloa, Galle, Matara, Kurunegala, Puttalam, Badulla, Ratnapura and Kegalle, Mathale, Hambantota and Kalmunai are also identified as high-risk. Twenty-seven of these showed a rise in cases in the first week of January while another 51 MOH areas recorded persistently high numbers. 
Meanwhile, a special mosquito control programme was conducted within the Western, Central, Northern, Eastern, Southern, North Western and Sabaragamuwa provinces.
School premises must be examined at least once a week, Dr Seneviratne urged these institutions. “The main strategy to control dengue is source reduction,” she said. “Schools must take necessary measures to destroy breeding sites of mosquitoes.”
Parents might consider applying mosquito repellent on schoolchildren, she said.
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