City-based NGO takes preventive measures in dengue-hit Tiruvallur

The volunteers along with officials from the health department began with a campaign on source reduction. “To start with, we distributed pamphlets on dengue awareness and bleaching powder to the households. On visiting the houses, we ensured the water storage containers including cement cisterns and sumps were cleaned.  

We asked people to remove all the unwanted containers and materials like used tyres, broken pots, broken plastic buckets, plastic waste etc. We also gave them several pointers on how to cover the containers,” says Shivakumar a volunteer with Care and Welfare. Around 80 volunteers visited the district on two Sundays and covered more than 3,550 houses. The district consists of 14 blocks, out of which the situation in eight blocks is serious. “We started on September 18 and covered 2,067 houses and checked 1,135 containers. October 2, we covered around 817 houses and checked 4,085 containers and found larva in 129,” says Shiva.

The next step was to ensure that people consumed clean water. “We used temephos for large containers. “For every one litre, one ml of temephos has to be diluted. We also spoke about water chlorination. People need to be informed about the Aedes mosquito that causes in spreading of dengue fever, chikungunya and other diseases. It breeds in fresh water and a massive drive had to be taken to ensure that the people take cognisance of that,” he adds. They plan to visit the district in the coming weekend with over 100 volunteers. “We do not want any more deaths due to dengue and will continue our work for coming weeks,” he says.