Rural Bengal is getting more vulnerable to dengue outbreak as compared with prevalence of the vectorborne disease in Kolkata and adjoining towns like Howrah, Salt Lake, New Town and Rajarhat this year. Yet another dengue death was reported in the city on Saturday. Dona Das, a 12-year-old girl of Golam Mohammed Shah Road in Ward 93 succumbed to the disease today in a hospital in the Jadavpur area. Public health experts attached with the state health department at Swasthya Bhaban on Saturday said, “Rural Bengal has overlapped the city and adjoining towns this season with reports of 60 per cent of total dengue-infected cases in the state since January.

Earlier, in 2021 and 2022 respectively, both districts and the city used to share almost equal 50 per cent each.” “We are seriously concerned with reports of high prevalence of dengue cases in districts because the disease restricted normally to urban areas is being reported in villages,” the expert felt requesting anonymity. “It’s a fact that the vectorborne disease is rapidly spreading its areas of infection network in villages across the state.

For instance, around 500 dengue patients have already been recorded in different parts of Jhargram, a district with virtually no reports of the viral fever caused by aedes aegypti mosquito bites till 2022, only this year,” Suktisita Bhattacharya, assistant commissioner in the panchayat and rural development department, told The Statesman. “Prevalence of dengue infections is very high in districts like in North 24- Parganas, Nadia, Birbhum, Murshidabad and South 24- Parganas. Our department is trying hard to create awareness among people in villages. Block development officers (BDOs) have also been asked to monitor dengue prevention and control initiatives in their respective blocks,” Mrs Bhattacharya said.

The panchayat and rural development department has also urged employees of other concerned departments like health, urban development and municipal affairs, public health engineering etc to get involved in dengue prevention and control drive in districts because the situation is alarming, she added. On Sunday, the state government held a virtual meeting chaired by the home secretary BP Gopalika at the secretariat Nabanna to discuss dengue and malaria prevention and control measures in the state.