In the past five months, 2,485 persons had been diagnosed with dengue fever but no death had been reported, Health Minister Ma. Subramanian said here on Monday.
The Minister was speaking at the launch of an awareness programme to mark the National Dengue Day at the Tamil Nadu Government Multi Super Specialty Hospital, Omandurar estate.
Mr. Subramanian said the number of dengue cases was high in the districts of Krishnagiri, Kanniyakumari and Dharmapuri. He attributed this to people’s tendency to discard coconut husks and broken pot shards around their homes.
In Chennai, 1,260 awareness camps had been held and so far ₹2.5 lakh had been collected as fine, he said. In 2017, the State recorded 65 deaths due to the infection whereas last year eight deaths were reported.
The Health Department aimed to conduct two lakh tests in 2022. In five months, 66,747 tests had been done. The number of tests was lower in 2020 at 42,311 from which 2,400 samples turned out positive. In 2021, of the 1,73,199 samples tested, 6,039 returned positive.
Mr. Subramanian said the viral infection had been high in 2012, 2015 and 2017. The State government had more than doubled the number of Elisa testing centres from 125 to 300. The department had deployed 21,000 field workers to visit every household to spray insecticides. The department had deployed 1,112 vehicle-mounted sprayers; 7,087 hand-held sprayers and 7,654 mini sprayers. The State had sufficient stock of pesticides, he said.
The department is conducting exhibitions as part of its various health programmes, including Makkalai Thedi Maruthuvam, Varumun Kappom schemes, or the Centre’s health festival.
Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Minister P.K. Sekarbabu was present. The Ministers flagged off vehicles that would conduct awareness programmes.
