2023 was a year of dengue in Bangladesh

Farzal Muyid | Published: January 01, 2024 20:21:05 | Updated: January 01, 2024 21:25:13

Dengue, a vector-borne disease that usually appears in wet monsoon, especially during the months from June to September has evidently changed its behaviour in Bangladesh. For it is still raging during the unlikely season of winter with reports of hospitalisation coming from outlying districts. It is also unusual because, so far as our previous experience goes, it is the densely populated cities where dengue infections generally occur, but it is not so now in Bangladesh. According to Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) data, this year 65 per cent of the dengue cases have been reported from outside Dhaka. This is also happening for the first time in the country's dengue history. So, it is history after history that dengue virus and its carrier, Aedes mosquito, have been making in Bangladesh, thanks to climate change, if not to a lack of effective human intervention to control the affliction.
Consider the recent invasion of every house in the city by swarms of mosquitoes. Who knows what percentage of them are dengue-carrying ones? Though there is no rain now, there may still be unattended roadside Aedes-larvae-filled puddles, plastic cans or coconut shells strewn across the open spaces between buildings of the city's mahallahs and in the water tanks of under-construction buildings. To corroborate this view, it would be worthwhile to refer to a recently published media report on the post-monsoon survey on Aedes mosquito larvae in the capital's two city corporations for the month of December. The survey conducted by the disease control wing of the DGHS found that compared with last year's findings from a similar survey, the just-ended December saw a threefold increase in the larva population of Aedes mosquito in the city. Such surveys, according to those involved in the study, provide an idea of what is going to be the picture of things next monsoon. In fact, from last year's survey results, experts did indeed predict exactly what we have been experiencing now. Though the government people would say that they left no stone unturned to prevent the spread of dengue through destroying both adult Aedes mosquitoes and their larvae from their breeding grounds, their claim flies in the face of the uncontrolled spread of dengue across the country with accompanying fatalities. Consider that between 2,000 and 2022, a total of 244,246 people contracted dengue while only 849 patients died of the disease. But in 2023 alone, the number of people infected with dengue was 321,179 while those succumbing to the disease was 1705. If one looks at the dengue-related deaths in the years preceding 2023, the fatalities from dengue was 86 in 2022, and 22 in 2021. Evidently, 2023 was an exceptional year when dengue struck the nation with a vengeance. Bur do those in authority really comprehend the scale of public health problem they are encountering at the moment? It has indeed been a case of health emergency, though the authorities concerned did not declare it as such. To many in the medical profession, this year's dengue outbreak was of epidemic proportion. And if adequate preparations are not taken to face the emerging threat, next year may prove to be a catastrophic one as far as dengue is concerned. And DGHS's survey findings for December, 2023 speaks volumes for that.
Granted that 2023's irruption of dengue took people engaged in mosquito eradication or those in the health department by surprise. In that case, the element of surprise should not at least be there next year when the nation is faced with a similar or worse case of dengue outbreak.

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