Timely preparations by the Jharkhand government has helped it to battle the menace of vector-borne diseases in a better way at a time when cases of fatal Serotype-2 dengue are pouring in from some neighbouring states.

“The Union health ministry has been taking regular updates from us and fortunately there has not been a single death due to dengue in our state. The only death in the state was of a patient who tested positive in Uttar Pradesh and returned to Jamshedpur in a critical condition and succumbed earlier this month. The reason is our advanced preparation in terms of entomological survey beginning from early June across the state in coordination of local urban bodies,” said Dr S.N. Jha, state malaria officer and deputy director of health.

The Union health ministry had on Saturday highlighted the “emerging challenge” of Serotype-2 dengue in 11 states — Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Telangana. There have been deaths reported also in Bihar from dengue. The Centre had asked the states to undertake steps like early detection of cases, operationalisation of fever helplines and adequate stocking of testing kits, larvicides and medicines.

“We had started focussing on such preparation as soon as the Covid cases dipped in the state and started the entomological survey in June with larval surveillance for vector-borne diseases. Following the directive from additional chief secretary (health), Arun Kumar Singh, the door-to-door surveillance work for containing vector-borne diseases started on a war footing from June 15 and this would continue till November 15,” added Dr Jha.

Civic volunteers spray bleaching powder and larvicide at Chaibasa in West Singhbhum Bhola Prasad

This time, the health department had also coordinated well in advance with the state urban development department for taking up measures to control vector-borne diseases like dengue, chikungunya and malaria.

“Apart from entomological survey, all the district-level health officials coordinated with local urban bodies following a letter from the additional chief secretary (health) to the secretary, urban development, in May itself. Anti-larval activities, larval density survey and fogging began by mid-June by both the departments and the result is evident with lesser cases reported from even dengue-endemic zones of the state,” said state entomology officer Sagya Singh.

Larval surveillance and control is a critical component of any effective integrated mosquito management programme when mosquito larvae are eliminated prior to becoming adults and in the process cannot pose disease problems.

Trained field technicians inspected known sources of standing water and newly discovered standing water in the house-to-house survey and used standard dipping techniques to sample the water for immature mosquitoes and undertook physical control (destruction or removal of water accumulation points) and chemical control (through spraying of larvicides).

According to data from the ongoing entomological survey, so far 229,224 houses have been covered and out of which dengue larvae was found and destroyed in 14,457 houses and 26,010 containers with dengue larvae were destroyed.

There have been zero casualties and a total of 107 dengue cases across Jharkhand so far, the bulk of which (57) were in state capital Ranchi.