The district Health and Family Welfare Department has decided to rope in schools to combat dengue in the district.
It has decided to take up a drive from Monday and scores of teams have been formed to visit the schools in the district. The teams will educate children about dengue, formation of mosquito larva and other dengue-related issues, and create an enthusiasm among them to find out larva in their houses, schools or their surroundings. Children, who find larva and inform the authorities, will be given prizes.
S. Chidambar, District Vector Borne Diseases Control Officer, told The Hindu on Saturday that the drive has been chalked out at the behest of Deputy Commissioner C. Shikha. Each team will comprise doctors, senior health assistants and one auxiliary nurse midwife.
Each team is assigned a certain number of schools and the team will educate children about the disease.
The Health Department has also written to the Education Department to instruct the head masters/ principals of the institutions to cooperate with the teams during the drive.
Mr. Chidambar said that over 550 schools would be covered in the one-month drive and lakhs of schoolchildren and thousands of teachers would be thoroughly enlightened about the disease and steps to prevent the disease. The teams, during the drive, will also examine the kitchen in the schools and it would prevail upon the cooks not to store water for a long time period. The teams will also visit hostels. The teams will also prevail upon the hostel authorities to provide mosquito nets to the residents and also to put mosquito window mesh to all the rooms.
Meanwhile, the authorities concerned have tested blood samples of 156 persons on Friday and Saturday to test for dengue and the results would be know by Sunday afternoon, Mr. Chidambar said.
