Special measures will be taken to control mosquito menace in the district during the Rath Yatra, said Collector Sachin Jadhav.
He was speaking at a district-level task force meeting on dengue preparedness, organised by Zilla Swasthya Samiti and National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme in Koraput on Friday.
While there was no trace of dengue in Koraput till 2009, suddenly large number of Aedes mosquitoes, the carrier of dengue, were found in 2009 in different parts of the district, Vector Control Research Centre chief scientist SS Sahu said. Dengue could be prevented through four vector control methods such as environmental management, biological control, chemical control and personal protection methods, he said.
The Collector asked the officials to go for an inter sectoral coordination to prevent the spread of mosquitoes in the district.
“Any epidemic would mean great loss to humanity, and Koraput was not an isolated district as before keeping itself immune from the impact of the developing portions of the country which are in the grip of such diseases,” he added.
The Collector proposed to conduct special meetings with the urban bodies of the district to maintain cleanliness. A special spray would be used on the route where the chariot would move to arrest mosquito menace.
CDMO Niranjan Das said a dengue sentinel site will be opened soon at District Headquarter Hospital for confirmation of dengue cases.
The site will have a technical committee for analysis of data to develop different strategies for prevention of the disease, he added.