GUWAHATI, Sept 23 - Although everyone is concerned about the COVID-19 pandemic right now, the peak season for dengue has also started in the State.
Notably, this disease is very much prevalent in urban areas of the State. In Guwahati, dengue is considered as a serious health issue and many municipal wards of the city are counted as hotspots for the disease based on the previous years� records.
The disease creates symptoms like high fever, headache, eye pain (typically behind the eyes), muscular pain, joint pain, redness in the eyes, skin rashes, bleeding gums, nausea, vomiting, etc.�
Fortunately, this year, only one dengue case has been reported till date in the city even as a total of 24 cases have been reported across the State with no fatality.
According to data gathered from the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme (NVBDCP), till date five dengue cases have been reported from Cachar district followed by Dibrugarh (3) and Goalpara (2).�
Last year, as many as 105 dengue cases were reported in the State with no fatality.
It is worth mentioning that the State had recorded a total of 6,157 dengue cases in 2016 and out of them 5,023 cases were reported from the Kamrup Metro alone. But, now the situation has improved a lot and no person died of the disease in the past two years.
Officials of the NVBDCP informed that as a preventive measure, they have been conducting massive source reduction activity across the 33 wards of Guwahati. But, the COVID-19 pandemic has hampered the activity in many areas.
As part of the source reduction activity, health workers distribute leaflets in every household of the city to create awareness about the disease. In the leaflet, the people are urged to prevent stagnation of water in and around their houses, wear full-sleeve clothes, and use mosquito nets while sleeping, even during the day hours as the dengue-causing Aedes aegypti mosquitoes bite during the day.
