The steep rise in dengue cases has prompted most districts in Bengal to set up dedicated control rooms to keep round-the-clock vigil on the vector-borne disease in their respective areas.

Such control rooms were introduced during the multiple waves of Covid-19 and used to keep watch on patients detected with the novel coronavirus and those with symptoms.

“The districts where the number of dengue cases is relatively high have already opened such control rooms. Other districts have been asked to follow the same processes before Durga Puja,” said a senior health official in Calcutta.

Bengal reported 1,375 dengue cases on Tuesday and a substantial number was reported from Calcutta, North 24-Parganas, Howrah, Hooghly, Murshidabad, Darjeeling, and Jalpaiguri districts. Although health department officials did not confirm the total number of deaths from dengue, several sources said at least a dozen people had lost their lives on account of the vector-borne disease this month alone.

The number of dengue cases on Wednesday were 912.

Officials said health staff in the control rooms would collect details of patients who test positive for dengue. The officials would call the patients daily for seven days to know whether they are getting symptoms that require hospitalisation. The officials would also arrange for hospitalisation, with health staff on the ground.

The control rooms would also monitor locations from where more cases are reported and contact the local bodies to visit the areas to find out whether there is an active source of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which are responsible for the disease.

Howrah is the first district to open such a control room.

“We collect the daily dengue test reports with the contact numbers of patients. Our staff contact the patients and alert the family members to the symptoms that would lead to hospitalisation. They also keep in touch with patients who have fever and other symptoms but test reports are negative,” said Nitai Chandra Mondal, the chief medical officer of health in Howrah.

Sources said besides opening control rooms, the state government has taken several other steps to rein in the rise in dengue cases, such as banning the sale of painkillers or paracetamol-like medicines without prescriptions. The drug control department officials in the districts are visiting medicine shops to monitor whether they are selling such medicines without prescriptions.

“In the case of dengue, it is very important to get tested within five days if someone gets a fever. We have reported that in many pockets, people are assuming the symptoms are that of common cold or flu, and taking such pills as a remedy. So, the medicine shops have been asked to stop the sale of such medicines without prescription,” said a source.

This year, the government is facing an additional challenge to combat the vector-borne disease, as a number of cases have been reported from rural pockets.

The health department has also asked to collect the blood samples of the patients from the concerned rural hospitals and send them to the government labs for testing, so the patients need not go to a lab for a test.

3 children swept away

Three children went missing in the Bhagirathi at Raghunathganj in Murshidabad district on Wednesday when they had gone to the river to take bath.

Five children of Sridharpur village were swept away, but two of them were rescued by local people. The two were taken to the Jangipur subdivisional hospital.

District police chief Bholanath Pandey said efforts were on to trace the three missing children. “Disaster management officials will reach the site early tomorrow,” he said.

The missing children were cousins Shehnaz Khatun, 7, and Habiba Khatun, 5; and their neighbour Samayira Khatun, 6.

Alamgir Hossain