The Punjab chief secretary is holding a meeting today to review 2013 dengue action plan at Civil Secretariat Lahore but Pakistan Today has learned that the posts of an entomologist, a senior entomologist and 14 field inspectors are lying vacant in the Dengue Department and the action plan is being implemented without ‘expert opinion’.
The meeting is expected to be attended by the health secretary, finance secretary, cooperative secretary, information secretary, the Lahore commissioner, the district coordination officer and the King Edward Medical University vice chancellor.
The Dengue Department was formed under the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) to work in the Punjab. Since its inception, the department is functioning under the EPA on temporary basis and it appears that there are no prospects it would start working independently in future.
In the ongoing larva extermination campaign in Lahore, the Environment Protection Department (EPD) has identified 56 breeding grounds of dengue. One of the major steps been taken to control the spread of dengue is fish stocking in all nine towns of the city, including the Cantonment.
According to the EPD, 28 percent of dengue patients were found in the RaviTown, 26 percent in ShalamarTown, 21 percent in DataGanjBakshTown, 6 percent in NashterTown, 5 percent in Cantonment, while 4 percent were found in IqbalTown, SamanabadTown and AzizBhattiTown. If seen gender-wise, 75 percent of dengue affected patient were men.
The EPD officials are adamant at countering the disease. The EPD officials said that so far they had lodged 404 FIRs in Lahore.