Fear of vector-borne pandemic looms

FE Team | Published: September 08, 2025 21:08:43

In terms of incidence of dengue and death from it, the year 2023 may be the worst recorded so far, but this year's mosquito-borne disease has a new dimension. It is primarily because of the invasion of the twin enemies of dengue and chikungunya. But then the influenza or flu known in common parlance as viral fever has made the matter further complicated with certain strains of dengue completely eluding diagnosis and looking similar to seasonal fever. Common flu around this time has ever remained an annual health concern but never a serious one. This year's viral fever has been perilous with splitting headache accompanying it. The adverse impacts of this on a patient range from extreme physical weakness to wobbling feet and dislike for food. Even the physicians initially got confused about the type of vector-borne disease. For weeks patients suffer the trial and tribulation of the complications.
Bangladesh shows all the signs of sliding into the band of countries with the worst cases of dengue. Now that chikungunya has staged a comeback with 785 confirmed cases between January and July with the detection rate exceeding 30 per cent in some facilities, the unfolding scenario looks calamitous. It is because about more than 34,000 dengue cases have already been detected, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) with 135 confirmed deaths by Sunday last. Hospitals are doing beyond their means with far greater number of such patients with the Dhaka Medical College squeezing three times more in-patients than it can accommodate. The prediction is even direr that in the next few weeks, the crisis would only turn worse, assuming the proportion of a mini-pandemic, if not a full-blown one.
It is against this backdrop, both the preventive and curative measures can decide how Bangladesh can manage the emergency facing it and then how can it devise a permanent solution to the problem. First, the emergency. Expansion of medical facilities including camps similar to those opened on emergency basis during the Covid-19 can avoid overcrowding in the existing hospitals. But at the same time, the worst affected areas or wards of different cities should be detected by teams dedicated to this purpose, which will destroy the breeding grounds of aedes larvae within that area systematically. Thus the next badly affected areas and so on should be dealt with either simultaneously if enough voluntary teams can be pooled, or according to priorities. Preferably, the campaign should be coordinated and simultaneous.
Here the media's suggestions for emulating Kolkata's extraordinary success in containing dengue has fallen on deaf ears. The authorities there have taken proactive, ward-based approach to eradicate threat of dengue. Mapping potential breeding sources like ponds and water tanks begins as early as January. Field worker, Rapid Action Teams and health officials perform their assigned duty under a coordinated and comprehensive programme leaving no scope for aedes or anopheles to breed. On detection of the isolated cases of dengue, the Rapid Action Team arrives at the patient's home and looks for any source within the radius of 50 homes before taking appropriate measures. This is no mystery that the authorities in Dhaka can fail to unravel. Notwithstanding the greater threat posed by the vector-borne disease, Kolkata's approach is likely to be an effective and sustainable deterrent to any such potential pandemic.