The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation held an event to raise awareness about dengue prevention on National Dengue Prevention Day. The city mayor, Gadwal Vijayalakshmi, suggested that citizens clean their houses and surroundings every Sunday morning under the ‘Every Sunday at 10 am for 10 minutes’ campaign to prevent diseases like dengue and malaria. Authorities are promoting campaigns to encourage people to destroy mosquito larvae in areas such as planters, old tyres, and waste bottles.
The Mayor and officials released an awareness poster and pamphlets on how to prevent dengue. Vijayalakshmi said that awareness programs should be organized at every house this year with the theme of eradicating dengue disease using participatory methods. To prevent mosquitoes, house surroundings should be cleaned regularly, lids of overhead water tanks should be tight, and items like rubber tyres, drums, plastic items, and flower pots without water storage should be cleaned.
It is essential to remove damaged items, plastic, and polythene items without water storage as they are breeding grounds for mosquitoes. Mosquitoes can be prevented by removing weeds and growing basil, mint, citronella grass, and lemon grass. The staff should ensure that sewage does not accumulate in the surroundings of houses. Water going out of houses should go into drains.
Small puddles and pits that lead to water storage in surroundings of houses should be filled up. The Mayor stressed that dengue, chickenpox, and malaria diseases should be eradicated. To prevent mosquito larvae in ponds, oil balls should be used or Gambusia fish can be dropped into them. Action should be taken to prevent indiscriminate garbage dumping.
If a dengue positive case is registered, measures are being taken to prevent it from spreading to others through sprayer. Chief Entomologist Dr Rambabu, Jubilee Hills Deputy Commissioner Rajinikanth, Khairtabad SE Rajitha, sanitation staff were present at the event.
