The Health and Family Welfare Minister Brahm Mohindra has issued advisory to all the concerned departments to brace up their activities well in advance to combat the potential Dengue outbreak in the rainy season. The Health Minister has also issued instructions to the 11 different departments of the Punjab who are supposed to do specific preliminary arrangements and generate awareness among their folks to curb any potential dengue outbreak in the state.Disclosing this an official spokesperson of the Health Department said that the Minister gauging the seriousness of this issues has also convened a inter-departmental meeting of these 11 department on July 24 to review preparedness of concerned departments to prevent and combat Dengue in the State. The administrative secretaries of the 11 departments concerned have been invited for this meeting. All the departments have been told to come prepared with their action plans for prevention and control of dengue and chikungunya.Health Minister informed that the Department of Health was concerned with entomological surveillance in order to check the breeding of mosquitoes and Department of Local Government has to ensure challaning of the offenders and to ensure spraying and fogging in the areas to prevent the disease. It is the prime responsibility of the Municipal Committees and urban local bodies to ensure that the approved insecticides are procured before the season and spraying is done in all the urban towns from where majority cases of dengue and chikungunya are being reported.
Department of Health has sensitized the staff of the Department of Local Government about different insecticides to be used and the procedure of spraying and fogging.It was informed that all the hospitals of the State are well prepared to tackle any situation arising out of outbreak of dengue or chikungunya. Dengue cases have risen alarmingly in the southern States like Kerala in the current year. State of Punjab is reviewing the preparedness to tackle the situation. Department of Health has procured the testing kits for dengue and chikungunya well in advance and testing of these diseases will be done free of cost in the Government hospitals. All hospitals have designated dengue wards where patients are kept under mosquito nets and supportive treatment is being provided free of cost.Health Minister will also be review the rising incidence of outbreaks of diarrheal diseases and cholera in the State which has been responsible for significant morbidity and few deaths even. The Minister asserted that the onus of disease burden and mortality if any due to diseases like dengue, chikungunya, cholera and diarrheal diseases comes on health department which is not the actual department responsible for prevention of spread of these diseases. The departments concerned for prevention of these diseases will be accountable now so that general public should not suffer.