Chikungunya first visited Bangladesh over a decade ago but the intensity was not as high as it is this year.
Published : 15 Jul 2017, 12:43 AM
While people reel from the mosquito-borne viral disease, the blame game continues as no one is ready to shoulder the responsibilities of the spread.
Health Minister Mohammed Nasim has held the city corporations responsible for the outbreak of the disease as they failed to eradicate mosquitoes.
On the other hand, Dhaka North City Corporation or DNCC Mayor Annisul Huq says the home-grown mosquitoes were the cause of the disease and not the ones bred in drains and marshlands.
He also said it is not possible for the city corporation people to go inside every household to kill mosquitoes or to hang mosquito nets.
Chikungunya has spread so much fear into the public that a lawyer has moved the High Court seeking compensation for the victims from the government, only for the court to throw out his petition.
The city corporations have spent Tk 1.16 billion in mosquito elimination programme in last five years, but the blood-sucking tiny insect was omnipresent in the capital, which begs the question of the effectiveness of such a huge expenditure.
However, the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research or IEDCR has identified 23 areas in the capital as most vulnerable to the disease.
The disease and experts’ advice
# Chikungunya was first reported in the African nation of Tanzania in 1952. In Bangladesh, the disease was prevalent in 2008 but not as severe as it is now.
# In Tanzanian local language, chikungunya means something that bends. With body temperature, the pain in muscle and joints are so severe that it bends the body.
# With muscle and joint pains there are red rashes on the body and nausea.
# Doctors advise that if there are symptoms, it would be better to start taking paracetamol-type medicine without waiting for pathological tests. Antibiotics should be avoided.
The poor suffer worst
Raw materials trader Shahidul Islam said someone in almost every family in his Moghbazar area has suffered the disease.
“I heard from my relatives and friends in other parts of the city that it’s a similar situation in those areas,” he told bdnews24.com.
“The low-income people are the worst sufferers as they have lost their daily income for not being able to go to work,” he added.
Masud Rahman of Uttara Sector-14 has similar symptoms, and the doctor is treating him for chikungunya.
Masud’s wife, Sultana Razia, told bdnews24.com she saw the city corporation workers spray 'medicine' ’on Thursday only in last three to four months.
“The drains are clogged with dirt. Those are the breeding ground for mosquitoes. They neither clean it nor spray insecticide regularly,” she complained.
A similar story came from Hossain Ahmed, a resident of Mirpur Sector-11.
On July 11, Health Minister Nasim said at a function in Osmani Memorial Hall that Dhaka city corporations had failed to keep the mosquito menace under control and it worsened the situation.
The Aedies mosquito, which is responsible for dengue, also spreads chikungunya.
He made a similar statement in parliament.
New experience
In response to health minister’s accusation, DSCC Mayor Khokon said he did not want to go into analysing the ‘success’ or ‘failure’.
“It’s not a question of success or failure. We are doing our job. I hope we will get results in three to four weeks,” he said on Friday while launching a ‘crash programme’ to combat the mosquito menace.
“When there is a situation, there is an outbreak of disease, we have to fight it together,” he added.
Home-grown mosquitoes
Dhaka North Mayor Annisul Huq shrugged off the blame for rising chikungunya cases in the capital.
He claimed the viral disease was spreading fast because of the mosquito population inside households, rather than those being bred in the city's drainage system.
The mayor made the remark amid accusations of negligence against his office by Nasim who had criticised the extermination and cleaning drives as inadequate.
“The city corporation can't kill mosquitoes inside your homes. The ones breeding in the drainage pipes are not the main reasons behind the spread of chikungunya,” he told a media briefing on Friday.
Experts formerly employed with the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research or IEDCR supported the mayor's view during the discussion on chikungunya at the DNCC headquarters.
Epidemic or not
Chikungunya prevalence is high in the capital but debate continues as to whether it can be called an epidemic due to lack of government or private agency statistics.
The IEDCR on its website said that as of Jul 12 it had identified 649 chikungunya patients.
The health minister had previously said that one in 11 patients suffering from fever was affected by chikungunya, quoting a figure given by the IEDCR.
The IEDCR conducted a telephonic survey among 4,775 people, of whom only 357 said they had the fever with joint and muscle pain.
But, the cases could not be confirmed as chikungunya as there were no pathological tests carried out on those patients.