Health Experts Advise Citizens To Adopt Anti-dengue Precautionary Measures

RAWALPINDI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 1st Sep, 2019 ) :Health experts have advised the citizens to adopt precautionary measures to protect them from dengue and stagnant water must not be allowed to accumulate in their homes and streets.

The medical experts said the citizens should adopt precautionary measures also at their homes especially after monsoon rains.

According to a District Health Authority spokesman, the district health authorities on the directives of Punjab Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar were discharging their duties effectively but the citizens should also play their role to control dengue.

They should realize their duties to save them and their families from the dengue fever, he added.

He said with the recent monsoon rains in the city, the peak season of the virus had already begun and precautionary measures at the stage were a must.

He urged the people to properly cover themselves from their wrists to collars and their ankles from mosquitoes.

He advised the citizens to use mosquito repellents and anti-mosquito coils.

He said sprays at homes were also necessary to eliminate the breeding points of mosquitoes and to stop further prevalence of the disease.

He said the department had been educating the citizens about precautionary measures in order to avoid dengue virus.

"Prevention is better than cure," he said, adding the fatal dengue virus could be controlled by following precautionary measures and conducting anti-dengue sprays.

"The people should fully cover their bodies especially at dawn and dusk and do not let water accumulate anywhere so as larva could not breed around their houses." According to medical experts, the citizens should use mosquitoes protective nets and coils, properly dispose off the solid waste and stop water storage practices at their homes to prevent access to egg-laying female mosquitoes.

"Mosquitoes breed primarily in containers like earthenware jars, metal drums and concrete cisterns used for domestic water storage, as well as discarded plastic food containers, used automobile tyres and other items that collect rain water," they added.

Dr Sohail toild APP said dengue was a mosquito-borne infection, which in recent years had become a major public health concern.

He said the dengue virus circulated in the blood of infected humans for two to seven days, at approximately the same time as they suffered from fever.

He added the clinical features of dengue fever varied according to the age of the patient.

Dr Altaf of the Benazir Bhutto Hospital said infants and young children might have a non-specific febrile illness with rash as older children and adults might have either a mild febrile syndrome or the classical incapacitating disease with abrupt onset and high fever, severe headache, pain behind the eyes, muscle and joint pains and rash.