For an all-out anti-littering drive

Although this year's dengue outbreak has not yet created the extent of panic and anxieties like the 2020-21 Covid-19, days may not be far when it'll take a similar disastrous turn. In the last five months after its initial assault, and the steady rise in its victims in Dhaka and elsewhere in the country, the often-fatal fever now seems to be stuck in a stalemate. On being witness to over 36 thousand becoming dengue cases, most of them hospitalised, in July, and 182 dead, both health professionals and the general people find themselves in a panicky situation. With a major hospital suspending admission of patients, many others feel perplexed.
The preventive measures against the virus of corona pandemic didn't take long to reach the Bangladesh people. Thanks to it being a global scourge, the initial preventives against it came in the form of special masks, hand sanitisers etc. The vaccines came much later. The classical way of preventing the dengue fever is to keep its vector, a mosquito, at bay. It's the bite of the mosquito called Aedes that makes one infected with dengue. People in general from all walks of life have long become used to sleeping under the mosquito nets. It's especially those who are bitten by the Aedes Aegypti mosquito become victims of dengue. The Covid-19 pandemic has taught people many dos and don'ts in the day-to-day life. On top of them all, the urban people learnt about the benefits of hand and face washing --- especially the fruits of avoiding crowded places. Dengue stressed restrictions on the habit of littering in the areas near residential places. By the time it became common knowledge that it is the Aedes mosquito vector which is singularly responsible for causing and spreading dengue, only a few people did pay heed. The rest, the vast majority of urban people, remained nonchalant.
The stringently prohibited activities of throwing containers that collect clean rain water, an ideal place for laying eggs by the Aedes mosquito, continue unabated. By putting up newspaper advertisements, and campaigning through loudspeakers etc, the public health authorities and the two city corporations have lately started conducting an anti-dengue campaign blitz. It should have started since the very beginning of the dengue outbreak this year. However, following its start, though belated, the awareness campaigns failed to create any noticeable impact on the common people of Dhaka and the other cities and towns. People rush the dengue patients to hospitals, which are now filled to capacity. They hardly bother to think that had they kept their homes and the adjoining areas free of the dengue vector they would not have to undergo the ordeals of visiting a crammed hospital. Littering and life in the Bangladesh urban centres appear to be the two sides of a coin. Throwing municipal wastes like various types of pots, containers and green coconut shells at public places, keeping flower tubs half filled with water inside houses are a common sight in the capital and its suburbs.
Dhaka has long earned the infamy of being a dirty city, with many of its public places overfilled with garbage. Although, the venues are supposed to be made free of the various types of debris every day, they lie untouched for indefinite periods. The two city corporations in charge of the dumpsters have, lately, come up for their upkeep --- especially after the dengue outbreak took a worrying turn. But the grim truth is the Dhaka residents at their individual levels continue to remain unconcerned even after their houses get known in the neighbourhoods as dens of dengue. Media reports on the inspection of residences to see if they abide by the anti-dengue instructions are now common. The corporations are supposed to slap fines on the house-owners if their compounds are found untidy, or infested with Aedes mosquitoes. Reports on taking action against the defaulters are veritably nil. Such reports have yet to be published by newspapers.
Lots of people think anti-littering campaigns in the urban areas ought to be launched on a war footing. The advocacy programmes on dengue have started since the outbreak began alarmingly in 2019. That these programmes ought to have been accompanied by anti-Aedes mosquito drives had failed to occur to the city corporation authorities. Had the preventive actions been in place coupled with corrective punishments in the city areas, the menace of littering could have been coped with effectively. Of late, all-out public campaigns on the need for keeping residences and the nearby areas clean appear to have gained renewed vigour.
People watching the fast deterioration of the dengue situation in the big cities do not feel convinced. They prefer effective action to ritualistic exercises on the dengue scourge. In the meantime, the population of the dreadful mosquitoes and the number of dengue cases, along with casualties, keep rising. The second month of the Bangla monsoon has started witnessing intermittent bouts of shower --- with brief sunny breaks. This is a situation highly in favour of the growth of the Aedes larvae in rain water. The field-level workforce of the two city corporations ought to swing into action right at this moment. There are few phases in the dengue infection process like this puzzling one, when the otherwise conscious people repent their indulgence in littering. In eradicating dengue, it is an all-out war on littering which should be deemed the smartest strategy.

shihabskr@ymail.com