Bangladesh suffered from 240,097 dengue cases this year, alongside suffering from a 0.5% death rate. While the administration has been imposing fines while attempting to shift the responsibility of controlling this disease onto the people, this is a reductive approach at best and willful negligence of duty at worst.
Dengue has always been a structural issue in our nation, and unless we take an epidemiological approach to eradicating this disease once and for all, we will continue to suffer well into the future.
Bangladesh ranked third this year when it comes to the number of dengue cases, but it held the top position for the highest death rate until October 22 of this year. In spite of the seasonal nature of dengue, the government has consistently failed to take effective control measures such as containing Aedes breeding grounds at a community level, conducting door-to-door mosquito control activities, and applying insecticides on a field level.
From a mitigation standpoint, insufficient hospital manpower, delayed diagnosis, and other bottlenecks have undermined any and all efforts to fight this virus effectively.
Bangladesh has witnessed a breakthrough in the guise of a still-developing vaccine for dengue, but that is some ways off from being made available for public use. Aside from exploring vaccines, taking a data-driven, epidemiological approach to the formulation and execution of strategies designed to eradicate this disease is crucial, as nations similar to ours have eradicated dengue following this exact approach.
Shifting blame by slapping households with fines is not the way to control dengue -- a holistic approach that considers both research and control methods into account is the only way out of this yearly disaster for us. We have some time before the next outbreak, and the government needs to make use of that time to minimize the damage.
