Health Minister Zahid Maleque has said that more dengue patients are dying due to availing treatment too late.
The minister said this in his remarks to journalists after meeting with the ambassadors of Nepal and Switzerland at the secretariat on Monday, reports UNB.
"Dengue patients are delaying in coming to the hospital and seeking treatment. During the initial stage, the dengue-infected people think that they've been suffering from mild fever or cold. Sometimes dengue virus causes hemorrhage or internal bleeding due to which it becomes tough to save a patient. This year, 72 per cent of deaths caused by dengue have happened within three days of patients coming to the hospital. That's why people should immediately test themselves if they're suffering from fever," said Maleque.
The health minister added that spraying insecticide by the city corporations is proving to be ineffective as a vector-control measure in containing dengue virus.
"After much spraying, we've seen that the amount of mosquitoes hasn't decreased. This means that besides people, mosquitoes have also developed antibodies in them. Till now, we've identified 58,000 dengue patients this year among whom 36,000 were from the city corporation areas. As more people live in cities and there are a huge number of drainage systems and garbage, it's natural that the city people will be more affected by dengue. However, people living in cities have to be cautious if they want to protect themselves from the mosquito-borne virus," Maleque added.
The minister further said that the government has taken sufficient measures to treat dengue patients.
"We had kept our hospitals ready to face the onrush of dengue patients. The situation became so serious that we had to treat 1,000 patients per day. Nowadays, we're dealing with around 400 patients per day, which means that we've been successful in containing the dengue virus to some extent. However, strict monitoring from the city corporations is needed to keep the viral disease in check," Maleque said.
Following a surge that started in August, 2022 turned out to be the worst year inflicted by the dengue virus in Bangladesh, where it has been endemic since the year 2000. Over 200 persons succumbed to the virus for the first time this year.