I have successfully controlled dengue: Mayor Tapas

Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) Mayor Sheikh Fazle Noor Tapas has claimed that as the DSCC mayor, he has successfully controlled dengue, waste removal and waterlogging in addition to ensuring good governance in the city corporation during his four-year tenure.

He made the claim at a press conference titled 'Four years of Dhaka's development progress' organised on Sunday (May 19) on the occasion of the anniversary of assuming the duty of DSCC mayor.

The mayor said, “After assuming office, we paid the highest attention to the development of mosquito control programmes. To achieve that goal, on June 6, 2020, we launched a year-round integrated mosquito control programme. Currently, we are conducting this programme throughout the year as per the schedule. Not only that, we have appointed new mosquito workers to speed up mosquito control activities. Earlier 424 workers were handling this activity. Currently, 1,500 mosquito workers and mosquito supervisors are regularly implementing mosquito control activities. At the same time, we have also increased the necessary vehicles and equipment.”

He said, “Prior to my assumption of charge, mosquito control activities were being conducted with 551 fogger machines, 431 hand-operated machines and 17 wheelbarrow machines. In the last four years, we have purchased 535 new fogger machines, 600 manual machines and 29 wheelbarrow machines.”

Tapas said, "In addition to this, regular discussions with all stakeholders in the light of the annual action plan, special cleaning of all educational institutions (1,086 schools, colleges, universities and madrasas), mosques, temples, and police stations in the areas under the jurisdiction of the DSCC have been conducted.”

“If more than 10 dengue patients are detected in a ward in a week, the ward has been declared a red zone. After such verification, until October 31 of last year, we found 9,764 dengue patients in the Dhaka South City Corporation area which is only 3.60 percent of the total number of patients in the country, because at that time, there were 2,71,175 patients in the country. As a result we have been able to control dengue with success,” the DSCC mayor added.