A team from Insect Transmitted Disease Investigation and Training Center, Hetauda found Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in water collected in the hospital compound. [break]The team also found mosquito larvae in flower pots in the general ward, administration section, store and doctors´ quarters and disposed tires, drums and containers. “Patients are not secure even in the hospital. There is no point talking about the state of other places,” head of the team Dr Sishir Panta said.
The locals have been scared after the vector was found inside the hospital and the District Public Health Office (DPHO). “The hospital and medical stores outside the hospital have also been infested. Where will we take the patients for treatment now?” questioned Shakuntala Thapa, a patient´s relative at the hospital.
The vector was found in 25 out of the 34 houses surveyed in Bharatpur Thursday while it was found in another 45 of the 98 surveyed in the last couple of days. The vector was found in water collected in 93 of the 172 disposed containers. The vector has also been found to have infected most of the government offices in Bharatpur.
DPHO Administrator Mahendra Prasad Shrestha has assured that the DPHO and Bharatpur Hospital will be cleaned immediately. Meanwhile, Vector Control Inspector at the DPHO Ram KC, said, “We had asked the locals to not allow water to be collected in their surroundings during the awareness campaign.
But they turned a deaf ear.” Altogether 119 patients out of the 766 have tested positive for dengue in Chitwan.
Spraying campaign started
Meanwhile, the local administration has started spraying insecticides in Bharatpur from Thursday. A team including two technicians, who arrived from Biratnagar, started spraying a mixture of malathion and diesel in the infected areas of the hospital and other areas of the city.
DPHO chief Shrestha said the spraying campaign will be taken to Nawalparasi district after Chitwan. He said the government has allotted around Rs 150,000 for the spraying campaign.
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