Forces help clean mosquito breeding grounds in city

by Ranil Wijayapala

The cleaning of mosquito breeding grounds in the Colombo city has seen remarkable progress within the past few weeks after Forces personnel joined the campaign, the Chief Medical Officer of the Public Health Department of the Colombo Municipal Council, Dr. Pradeep Kariyawasam said.

He said the public response to the directives given by the Security Forces personnel engaged in the awareness campaign was much better than the response from Municipal and other government officials.

Dr. Kariyawasam, however, expressed dissatisfaction about the response from leading schools in Colombo towards the shramadana campaign carried out to clear mosquito breeding grounds in the city. “Some leading schools not only shunned the shramadana campaign but also did not clean up their school premises properly. It was sad to observe that some schools which are supposed to be producing future leaders of the country were not even aware of the word “shramadana”, he said.

He said the number of dengue deaths reported within the Colombo city rose to 18 with two deaths reported this week from the Colombo North area. The number of people who were hospitalised due to dengue has also increased to 1,547.

According to the Epidemiology Department of the Health Ministry, 45 dengue related deaths were reported in the Colombo district, of which 18 were reported from the Colombo Municipal Council area. According to the latest dengue statistics there were 186 dengue deaths this year up to August 13.

A total of 25,880 dengue cases was reported so far this year compared to 35,008 cases reported last year.

Dr. Kariyawasam said that the CMC is taking all possible steps to prevent a dengue outbreak by using Western, Ayurvedic and homeopathy medicine packages.