Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Wednesday directed the Collectors to intensify sanitation and preventive measures as dengue outbreak in the State assumes alarming proportions, spreading to nine districts.
As many as 33 persons tested positive for dengue today taking the total to 121 in the State. Cuttack continues to reel under the outbreak with 20 new cases reported on Wednesday, while Angul registered four, Ganjam two, Balasore, Bhadrak, Nayagarh, Dhenkanal, Jajpur, Jagatsinghpur and Khurda posted one new case each. Around 147 samples were tested for dengue at different sentinel sites.
The Chief Minister held discussions with the collectors of six most affected districts of Cuttack, Ganjam, Khurda, Angul, Jajpur and Dhenkanal through videoconferencing and instructed them to speed up action for containment of dengue as well as awareness generation at the community level on prevention of the disease.
All dengue patients would be provided free treatment at the Government hospitals. The ICU services would also be free for the patients, he said. The Chief Minister directed the SCB Medical authorities to increase the number of beds in the special dengue ward in view of the outbreak in the City. The hospital presently has 50 beds in the ward, which will be raised to 150.
Cuttack Collector Girish SN continued his door-to-door visit in the worst affected ward 21 and 23 covering Rausapatna, Haripur and Nimasahi to supervise the sanitation and anti-larvicidal operations as well as educate people on dengue prevention measures.