Door-to-door awareness drive as dengue spreads

Alarmed by the soaring number of dengue cases in the city, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has begun a door-to-door awareness programme to spread the word on dengue prevention.

Teams comprising two health workers, an Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) and an Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANM), are visiting individual households, talking to residents about the need to eliminate sources of mosquito breeding at the ward level.

To begin with, the health workers have been visiting houses in South and East Bengaluru, where the cases are the highest.

On Tuesday, teams visited houses in BTM Layout, NS Palya and surrounding areas checking for possible sources. Residents were asked to keep their water containers closed to minimise mosquito breeding.“If there are pregnant women home, we take extra care. We have been asking them to ensure they take measures to avoid mosquito bites. Even the elderly and children are given more attention as they are vulnerable,” said an ASHA worker.

BBMP’s chief health officer Dr Vijayendra said the awareness drive will progress across the city in a phased manner.

In BBMP limits alone, 4,443 cases of dengue have been reported so far as against the 1,285 registered cases in 2018.

Among this, East zone reported the maximum number of cases with 1,542 positive cases so far. South and Mahadevapura zones have so far reported over 600 cases each.

“In the first phase, we are concentrating on areas that have majority of the cases. We have started with parts of South and East Bengaluru. We will gradually shift focus to areas that have relatively fewer cases,” said Dr Vijayendra.

He added that the BBMP, in an attempt to do source reduction, will display what the Aedes aegypti mosquito larvae look like.

Misconceptions

“There is a misconception that these mosquitoes live in unclean places. That is not the reality. It is in fresh and clean water that the mosquitoes breed. People, especially in urban areas, have been asking us why they would be at risk even if their houses were kept clean. These are the myths we want to bust,” Dr Vijayendra said.

According to Dr Vijayendra, dengue mosquitoes bite either just after sunrise in the morning or just before sunset.