Civic consciousness, the victor

Within a few days of launching the National Mosquito Control Month, dengue casualties in the Western Province have been drastically brought down and this testifies to the effectiveness of the state-initiated programme. While the relevant state agencies, such as the Health Ministry and the Security Forces, gave of their best in this campaign and thereby led from the front in fighting the blight, it could be also said that the programme helped greatly in raising public awareness about the disease. Accordingly, the civic-conscious sections of the public too played a major role in containing the potentially fatal ailment.

The health authorities did not find it always easy to carry out this campaign and the media had occasion to report an unfortunate incident where a PHI was clubbed to death by an irate householder, thereby highlighting the mighty odds against which the programme was implemented. Nevertheless, public awareness about the disease has increased and the observer could now see a relative readiness on the part of the citizenry to keep their premises clean. This keenness in cleanliness should be sustained and this aspect of controlling the disease should receive the attention of the authorities from now on.

So, in a vital way, civic awareness or consciousness has emerged a winner in this campaign against a deadly disease. If the hearts and minds of the public are keen on an issue, it could always be overcome or resolved in favour of the people, this is the ‘moral’ which needs to be derived. Hopefully, this ‘moral’ will be borne in mind by the state and the public. Galvanizing the people in the public interest, thus, emerges as a valuable approach to resolving national issues.

Sri Lanka could also take just pride in the fact that malaria is almost non-existent in this country.

It needs to be recollected that at one time malaria too was a dreaded disease. It claimed scores of lives in this country in the early parts of the last century. However, free healthcare services coupled with public vigilance have finally enabled the country to emerge victorious against this one-time scourge. It must be emphasized that in these health sector victories, the vibrancy of the state health services played a major role.

These are not the first occasions on which our state health services have brought renown to this country. It must be remembered that another killer disease of the last century, Small pox, was totally eliminated by our health authorities in the most efficient fashion. Therefore, our state-supported health sector has performed creditably over the years and our hope is that this notable record will be maintained.

However, the support of the public is vital for the success of these programmes. While, there is greater public awareness among the public on the dengue disease they must continue to support to the fullest state efforts to keep the illness under control.

The public should be habituated into being proactively involved in keeping dengue and other dreaded diseases under control. At present, the country alerts itself to dengue only when the monsoon rains come along. This amounts to merely reacting to the disease. This just would not do and what is required is an ongoing people-supported programme that would help in containing the blight.

The essential requirement is a proactively involved and energetic public which would be intent on seeing an end to dengue, monsoon or no monsoon. In other words, we need a highly disciplined public that would keep an eagle eye on the conditions that breed dengue and ensure that they are wiped out. This is an essential requirement if the spectre of dengue is to be shown the door forever.