Meghalaya News 24 Special Interview
Meghalaya Health department alerted the District Surveillance Units after the dengue outbreak reported in parts of North East. With dengue continues to rattle in parts of Northeast, over 800 cases of the vector-borne disease so far reported in Assam and Manipur.
Principal Secretary Health, Government of Meghalaya Sampath Kumar said the District Surveillance Units are put on alert in view of Dengue outbreak.
“Dengue again we need to look at it like what are the pockets so if it is actually the cases are rising in Assam means we need to be very careful,” Kumar told Meghalaya Meghalaya News 24.
A regular report are being collected from Sub-Centres and PHCs/CHCs and proper monitoring has been done throughout the 12 Districts of Meghalaya through the District Disease Surveillance units which are headed by the Deputy Commissioners of the respective districts.
“We have these District Disease Surveillance units are there, one of the thing that we did as part of the Covid management was creating the system like every district has District surveillance Officer and they are closely monitoring these issues,” the Principal Secretary said.
“ Infact this is where we get the Data. District Disease surveillance systems are there but whenever we have the outbreaks happens in different states, we also get a feedback from Government of India and we alert the entire system,” he added.
It may be mentioned that the dengue situation in Assam remained grim with over 427 Dengue positive cases recorded in just seven days.
Assam’s Karbi Anglong district is the most affected as a total of 400 cases have been detected in the district since November 1, according to the National Health Mission (NHM), Assam.
This was followed by Kamrup Metropolitan district with 11 cases, 2 cases each in Nalbari, Sibsagar, Dima Hasao Karimganj and a case each in Darrang, Dibrugarh, Kamrup Rural, Nagaon, Hojai, Sonitpur, Tinsukia and Udalguri districts.
Three deaths due to dengue have also been reported so far in the state, the NHM said.