Once again on Dengue

Dengue epidemic is still on the ascent. Already the total number of affected persons is nearing 14,000 and the number of deaths has exceeded 150. According to health experts, the peak of the epidemic is yet to come.

The question arises whether we have done everything possible to combat the disease? Or whether we have done everything and are hapless now? Unfortunately our answer to the first question is in the negative. Fortunately the answer to the second is in the affirmative. Today, we would like to raise certain issues that are still pertinent and express our opinion on the same.

Firstly, it must be stated that the Ministry of Healthcare and Nutrition and health professionals are doing a commendable service treating the affected and saving many lives.

However, we are perturbed by the haste with which both the politicians and the professionals have come out to blame each other for the escalation of the incidence of Dengue fever. In our opinion, the country could ill afford acrimony between the Minister and the GMOA at a time of such a deadly epidemic.

Combating the epidemic is not a matter to be left solely to the health authorities. Nor does it fall fully under the purview of the Ministry of Healthcare and Nutrition. It is basically a larger issue related to environment, urban development, local government and many more fields. Nor is it a mere question of proper garbage disposal as one could infer from the media reports.

Though garbage left abandoned or piled up to face the vagaries of the weather does contribute to the issue there are many other contributory factors like blocked drains and sewerage systems bursting at the seams, unhygienic states of public utilities like public toilets and ill managed housing schemes, abandoned gem pits and blocking of low lying land reservations for excess water flow by property developers. In fact, one could list such factors ad infinitum but this would suffice for our purpose.

Nor is dengue control the job of epidemiologists alone. As a learned professor stated in our columns on Saturday, entomologists also have a say, in fact, a bigger say in controlling such vector borne diseases.

More than anybody else it is the task of the community to prevent the spread of dengue by ensuring a clean environment. However most of the blame should go not to the householders but big time polluters like gem mining mudalalis, property developers and local government authorities.

With offence to none, we would also like to point out another danger. That is the complacency and lethargy that sets in the implementation of many a project as well as lack of commitment and craving for cheap publicity that is usually associated with such projects.

A few days ago we received a letter from a reader from a suburb of Colombo complaining against the manner in which a fumigation exercise was conducted in his vicinity.

Though residents were asked to go outdoors leaving open their doors and windows, the fumigating crew had left after fumigating two or three houses in front of video cameras. Apparently the local authority had seen only a cosmetic and image building value in fumigation, an objective as far remote from dengue control as the earth is from sky.

What is required is a massive drive to clean the environment with the full participation of the public enlisting all public and private institutions including schools and other educational establishments, religious institutions and community organizations. Nobody should be left aside or allowed to keep away.

How active are the thousands of peoples' representatives from MPs, Provincial Councilors to Pradeshiya Sabha members in such campaigns? We hope they would show the same enthusiasm, same eagerness, same commitment and same vigour as they show during their campaigning at hustings.

Such campaigns should be conducted on a regular basis and the media should be fully harnessed to create awareness among the population. At present, the media is a passive reporter of events giving the statistics of the affected and the dead. It is also the social responsibility of the media to campaign for clean environment and expose the hypocrisy of those trying to drag the campaign on superficial and cosmetic lines.

It is much profitable and rewarding to prevent the outbreak of dengue than curing the sick. Unfortunately we in Sri Lanka have given priority to curative medicine over preventive. It is a course of action that helps only Western pharmaceutical companies and drug manufacturers.

Poor countries such as ours should give emphasis to preventive measures as the Government seems to have realized now. Unfortunately we have not properly grasped the wisdom of the old adage 'prevention is better than cure." Today this adage, unfortunately adorns only after-dinner speeches and literary compositions of amateurs.