In order to protect the city dwellers from dengue, a special clean-up operation to control Aedes mosquito will be launched in all 54 wards of Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) from Saturday. In a statement on Friday, the DNCC said the 10-day campaign will run from 10am to 1pm every day except Friday. Each ward has been divided into 10 sectors and each sector has also been divided into 10 sub-sectors for conducting these special combing operations. As per DNCC’s plan, these operations will be conducted in one sector of each ward every day which means 10 sub-sectors in a day. It is expecting that the entire operation will be completed in 10 days. Each DNCC team will be joined by four cleaners and one mosquito eradication worker in each sub-sector. Forty cleaners and 10 mosquito eradication workers will work in each ward. During the combing operation, nine entomologists from the Department of Health, three entomologists from DNCC, officials from the Department of Health and the Department of Waste Management will be present to assist. The Department of Health will provide assistance in controlling Aedes mosquito, including in the DNCC combing operation. The places where the Aedes mosquito larvae can be found will be marked during this operation and DNCC will store pictures and addresses, mobile numbers of contact persons and other necessary information of the places will be instantly stored in an app. This will create a database of Aedes mosquitoe breeding in the areas under the DNCC.

The database will help DNCC to monitor the situation later when it will be needed. The app was created by Brigadier General Amirul Islam, Chief Engineer of DNCC.

Earlier, several combing operations were conducted in five wards from May 16 till before the Eid-ul-Fitr at wards 1, 6, 12, 18 and 32. At that time, 9,463 houses/places were inspected and Aedes mosquito larvae were found at 187 of them.

Along with the combing operation, a mobile court headed by the regional executive officer and executive magistrates of the DNCC will be conducted.

The mobile court on ‘Aedes mosquito control’ project started operations on May 10 at the DNCC. The court has fined Tk 426,300 to different house owners till Tuesday.

Bangladesh had a massive dengue outbreak last year when 101,354 people were hospitalised. Of them, 101,037 made full recovery. According to official figures, the mosquito-borne disease killed 179 people last year.

The Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Co-operatives on May 14 allocated Tk 30.63 crore for the city corporations and the municipalities to fight coronavirus and dengue.

DNCC has also started free dengue tests from May 11.

Experts warned that the capital city may witness even a worse outbreak of dengue this year as the presence of Aedes mosquitoes is very high in the early days of spring.

DNCC Mayor Atiqul Islam urged the ward councillors and dwellers of DNCC to support and assist the combing operation to prevent the dengue crisis.