The Department of Public Health is going to step up its information, education and communication (IEC) campaigns focussing on prevention of dengue in government and private schools in Coimbatore.
The schools have been requested to educate the students about dengue prevention measures during the daily prayer assemblies and other events when students gather in large numbers, S. Somasundaram, Deputy Director of Health Services, told The Hindu here on Wednesday.
The educational material on methods to prevent dengue has been submitted in a digital format to the Department of School Education, which it will distribute to all schools in the district.
The students will be taught on the steps they could take at their homes to prevent dengue.
These include preventing stagnation of water, which are the potential breeding sources for Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that carry the dengue-causing virus.
Further, the Deputy Director said that all the local bodies have been directed to ensure a minimum level of domestic breeding checkers or mazdoors in their areas during the months between June and August.
All the 12 blocks of the Coimbatore district will have at least 20 mazdoors per block and the 37 Town Panchayats, a minimum of 10 per block.
The Corporation and the three Municipalities have also been instructed to appoint workers.
Further, the Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage (TWAD) Board and local bodies have been instructed to tackle leaks from pipes and waterlines expeditiously and strengthen chlorination of tanks.
The IEC activities have also been stepped in rural areas to remove worn-out tyres where rainwater could accumulate and undertake periodic cleaning of water storage tanks at their homes. The people have been told to cover all utensils used to store water.
Review meetingsInter-departmental meetings were also held in the past two weeks to review the prevention measures taken up so far and to plan future ones, Dr. Somasundaram added.
