Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) Mayor Sheikh Fazle Noor Taposh has said that the corporation has procured a new repellent aimed at relieving city dwellers of the perennial mosquito menace.
“We have the mosquito repellents and insecticides tested repeatedly, to ensure their quality. A certain type of repellent becomes tolerable for mosquitoes if used for quite some time,” he said.
“So, we’re changing the repellent as its new type has already been imported,” he said while inspecting a playground in Old Dhaka on Wednesday afternoon, reports Bangla Tribune.
He made the comments amid news reports of a growing mosquito menace across the city.
Taposh went on saying that the DSCC would start spraying the newly imported repellent in two weeks, and expressed his hope that it would help greatly in pushing back the mosquito menace.
However, he claimed the mosquito menace in Old Dhaka was well under control compared to other parts of the city.
“The population of culex mosquitoes increases in late winter due to the decline in water flow. Yet we’re optimistic that our cleanliness and waste management programmes will largely control the mosquitoes,” he added.
Criticism poured in from different quarters after Bangladesh suffered a massive dengue outbreak in 2019 when 101,354 people were hospitalised. Of them, 101,037 made full recovery while 179 died.
But official figures showed no fatalities from the mosquito-borne disease last year, when nearly 200 people were hospitalized after being diagnosed with dengue.
