World Mosquito Day today amid worsening dengue situation

World Mosquito Day will be observed today with no significant activity in the country in observance of the day to raise awareness against mosquito-borne diseases like malaria, zika, dengue, and chikungunya.

This year, 450 people have died so far from mosquito-borne dengue fever and the situation is worsening day by day. However, the rate of malaria infection, another deadly disease transmitted by the same insect, is at a tolerable level in the country at present. 

In Bangladesh, dengue was first detected in 2000 and thousands of people suffer from the disease every year, with reports of 281 deaths last year alone. However, local government departments, including the two city corporations of Dhaka, are just stuck at killing mosquitoes using traditional methods, which yielded no significant result to contain the surge.

Even Dhaka North Mayor Atiqul Islam, who learned mosquito control methods from abroad, acknowledged the failure to control dengue, saying, "We are killing mosquitoes in the wrong way."

Meanwhile, the new method to eradicate mosquitoes brought by Dhaka North - biological treatment BTI – has been suspended amid allegations of fraud in importing the larvicide.

Every year, World Mosquito Day is observed on 20 August to commemorate Sir Ronald Ross, a British physician, who in 1897 first discovered that female anopheline mosquitoes are responsible for malaria.

As various organisations across the world planned awareness-raising programmes for today to mark the day, the Dhaka North city said that they will give more importance to their ongoing crush programme and mobile court activities to control mosquitoes. Other than that, there is no special programme on the occasion of the day.

According to the World Mosquito Programme (WMP), mosquito-borne diseases kill more than one million people and infect up to 700 million each year. This year, there have been more than three million dengue cases and over 1,500 dengue-related deaths so far globally.

Around one-third of the dengue-related deaths this year are in Bangladesh. Argentina, Peru, and Bangladesh have experienced the largest dengue outbreaks in their histories, according to WMP.

Since the beginning of this year's monsoon season, the dengue outbreak has been rampant in Bangladesh. About 92% of the total dengue infections this year took place only in the last 50 days.

According to the Health Emergency Operations Centre and the DGHS Control Room, a total of 95,877 dengue patients were admitted to various hospitals across the country from 1 January to 18 August, and 453 of them have died.

Dhaka North and Dhaka South have increased their budgets almost every year regarding mosquito control, spending Tk297.59 crore in the last seven years only to buy repellents and insecticides, but the mosquito menace remains out of control. 

Ex-president of the Bangladesh Zoological Society Entomologist Dr Manjur A Chowdhury told The Business Standard, "Dengue has become an epidemic in Bangladesh but authorities have completely failed to control dengue… City corporations attempted to control mosquitoes with frogs, deer and ducks, which were not seen anywhere else in the world."

Dhaka South Chief Health Officer Dr Fazle Shamsul Kabir said, "Anti-dengue campaigns and various programmes in the past have been able to reduce the infection to some extent. In the future, mosquito control measures will be taken in coordination with new technologies."

"We are trying our best and people are also becoming aware," said Dhaka North Chief Executive Officer Md Selim Reza.

Local government, city corporations failed to control dengue spread: Experts

Top entomologists in the country have said that the local government and city corporations are to blame for the current dengue crisis plaguing the country, owing to their failure to stem the spread of aedes mosquitoes.

Speaking at a press conference organised under the banner of the Bangladesh Vector Management Group, experts also said the health ministry data on dengue was fragmented, failing to paint a true picture of the scenario.

Moderating the event, entomologist Dr Manjur A Chowdhury said the city corporations' efforts to control the dengue virus had yielded no result.

"A full-grown mosquito can transmit dengue for up to 3-4 weeks. There is no alternative to killing flying mosquitoes, but fogging won't even kill 20% of the mosquitoes. Adult mosquitoes should be killed using the ULV formula," he said, adding that 95% of adult mosquitoes would have to be killed.

"Contact between mosquitoes and humans should be separated. Otherwise, dengue will not abate," he said.

About the BTI, Dr Manjur said what the Dhaka North had bought as BTI was poison and it was being used without following any rules.