Rhon­dor Dowlat

The Min­istry of Health has re­port­ed 1,315 con­firmed cas­es of dengue fever across the coun­try, with 13 fa­tal­i­ties linked to the mos­qui­to-borne dis­ease for 2024 thus far. 

As of Sep­tem­ber 5, 2024, au­thor­i­ties have al­so is­sued 914 yel­low fever no­tices to prop­er­ty own­ers and oc­cu­piers, urg­ing them to clean up their sur­round­ings to re­duce mos­qui­to breed­ing sites. 

This lat­est sta­tis­tics were dis­closed via a me­dia re­lease is­sued by the Min­istry of Health on Fri­day.

Le­gal ac­tion is be­ing con­sid­ered against 43 prop­er­ty own­ers for fail­ing to com­ply with these di­rec­tives.

The Min­istry re­minds the pub­lic that Dengue fever is spread by the bite of an in­fect­ed Aedes Ae­gyp­ti mos­qui­to. Symp­toms typ­i­cal­ly ap­pear with­in 5-6 days af­ter a bite and can last for 1-2 weeks. Com­mon symp­toms in­clude:

- Fever

- Se­vere headaches

- Pain be­hind the eyes

- Mus­cle and joint pain

- Skin rash

- Nau­sea or vom­it­ing

- Di­ar­rhea

Any­one ex­pe­ri­enc­ing these symp­toms should seek im­me­di­ate med­ical at­ten­tion at a health fa­cil­i­ty or their doc­tor.

To com­bat Dengue and oth­er mos­qui­to-borne ill­ness­es, the Min­istry urges cit­i­zens to re­duce mos­qui­to breed­ing sites by:

1. Dis­pos­ing of items that can col­lect wa­ter, such as derelict ve­hi­cles or ap­pli­ances.

2. Cov­er­ing wa­ter con­tain­ers like tanks and bar­rels with mos­qui­to-proof cov­er­ings.

3. Cut­ting down over­grown veg­e­ta­tion that may shel­ter mos­qui­toes.

4. Clean­ing drains and gut­ters to pre­vent wa­ter stag­na­tion.

5. Us­ing mos­qui­to nets and in­sect re­pel­lent for per­son­al pro­tec­tion.

The Min­istry em­pha­sis­es that vig­i­lant source re­duc­tion is the most ef­fec­tive way to com­bat the spread.