Dengue vector surveillance: authorities asked to pay attention to preventive measures

The Punjab government has asked all concerned authorities to give special attention to graveyards, junk yards, tyre shops and go-downs for dengue vector surveillance. Punjab Chief Minister's Special Assistant on Health, Khawaja Salman Rafiq said that legal action be taken against those who were not abiding with the government instructions in connection with dengue preventive measures.
He was presiding over a meeting of Central Response Committee at Chief Minister's Secretariat on Wednesday. Besides, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Nadeem Hassan Asif, Provincial Minister Chaudhry Abdul Ghafoor, Members Punjab Assembly, Secretaries, Additional Secretaries (Health), Environment, Higher Education, School Education, Local Government and Information & Culture departments, Commissioner Lahore, DCO Lahore and the senior officers of Special Branch, WASA and LDA and concerned departments attended the meeting.
Commissioner Lahore said that TMAs have been the task of cleanliness and water drainage from the graveyards. He informed that Lahore Waste Management Company has cleared 165 plots by lifting garbage and waste, besides redressing 1,000 complaints received from help line and special branch. He further informed that WASA teams are busy to stop water leakage from tube wells.
Secretary Higher Education informed that dengue awareness campaign for the students is being carried out in the government as well as private colleges. He said that zero periods are being observed in the colleges for this purpose. He also informed that cleanliness campaign has been launched in school level and special attention is being paid to make school premises dry and water tanks also being made clean.
He informed that special arrangements have been made to provide awareness to the children visiting Children Library Complex on daily basis. Addl. Secretary local government informed that 124 water filtration plants installed in different towns are being monitored regularly to prevent dengue mosquito breeding and regular monitoring is being done for this purpose.
Secretary Health Punjab, Captain Arif Nadeem (Retd) said that spray can only kill 20 per cent mosquito, therefore, special attention is being paid on the larvae-ciding so that mosquito population could be checked properly. Director CM Research Cell, Dr Waseem Akram informed that chemical and mechanical methods are being adopted for larvae-ciding but spray and fogging is being done on selective places from where larva and adult dengue mosquito is reported. He said that environment protection is also very important for human life.