Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said that dengue test kits are being developed in the country and the production process gas already kicked-off.
The premier made the remarks while responding to Jatiya Party lawmaker Md Rustam Ali’s question during the question/answer session in Parliament on Wednesday (Sept 11).
She said that raw materials have been brought in from abroad since Aug 6 and it will be possible to supply around 35,000 of these kits to avoid shortage.
Hasina added that up until Aug 3, over 368,000 dengue test kits including 157,000 NS-1 kits have been imported.
The Prime Minister said that her government has taken proper steps to check dengue and opened an investigation on buying ineffective mosquito repellent, news agency BSS adds.
“Investigation is being carried out (to find out) that who is responsible for purchasing ineffective mosquito repellent and why the medicines didn’t work,” she was quoted by BSS as saying.
The prime minister said this while responding to a supplementary from Ganoforum lawmaker Sultan Mohammad Mansur during her question-answer session.
Replying to another question, she also called upon the countrymen, including MPs, to create mass awareness about the mosquito-borne disease alongside keeping their houses and surroundings neat and clean.
“I would like to tell the countrymen including the lawmakers to make efforts together to create mass awareness so that water cannot be logged any place,” BSS quoted Hasina as saying.
Besides, the Leader of the House said, the countrymen, including the lawmakers, will have to keep their houses and surrounding areas of their constituency neat and clean.
Hasina said there is a matter of dengue larvae that larvae are usually borne in water. “If water of that area is dried, larvae can exist there … larvae could be alive again if it gets a drop of water. So it’s necessary to keep the houses and surroundings neat and clean properly,” she said.
She said the people now use fridges, air conditioners and commodes as their financial solvency has increased to a great extent.
“Larvae can be borne in these places and the Aedes mosquitoes don’t go to dirty places and like the elite class of our country, they like posh areas,” the PM said.
“We’ve (already) taken proper steps to eliminate Aedes mosquitoes,” she added.
About the outbreak of dengue, the Leader of the House said: “We’re saying it's an epidemic. But not only in Bangladesh, but the outbreak was also massive in surrounding countries.”
In the Philippines, she added, 500 people died of dengue in a week and emergency was declared there. “That situation was not created here and we didn’t allow such a situation to have happened,” she said.