Three new dengue cases reported from Bhubaneswar

BHUBANESWAR: Three new dengue positive cases have been detected from the capital city on Friday. The cases were reported from Chandrasekharpur area and some nearby localities, health department sources said.
With this the total number of dengue cases have touched 14 in the city. Five positive cases were from BDA Colony, the worst affected area. The woman, Pratima Sahu, 48, who died of dengue late on Wednesday night in a private hospital, was from this locality.
After death of the woman, the Bhubaneswar municipal corporation (BMC) and health department staff have intensified awareness drives in the area to control the disease. Rallies and door to door campaigns were carried out in some areas of Ward 47, 54 and 23 of the municipal corporation.
B K Brahma, director of health services, said positive cases in the state for this season increased from 48 on Wednesday to 56 on Friday. Out of which, three new cases were from Bhubaneswar only. Other five cases have been reported from different parts of the state.
BMC conducted a meeting here on Friday to discuss on the preventive measures to be taken for dengue. Officials and ward corporators stressed on massive cleanliness drive including bush cutting, mosquito sprays, drain cleaning, removing of unused tyres and other works across the city.
City mayor A N Jena said sanitation workers have been working in different localities in the city to keep surrounding clean. “We will spray larvicide on different stagnant water pools to stop breeding of mosquitoes. We have also decided to start fogging in some areas to control the elder mosquitoes,” he added.
He also appealed the people to change the water stored in different containers for several days in order to stop breeding of aedes aegypti, a mosquito which spreads dengue fever.