It is incredibly concerning that, despite the disease’s seasonal nature, dengue is still claiming lives in Bangladesh unabated.
The beginning of the year is usually a time when cases of dengue are rare and far in-between, but the fact of the matter is that dengue not claiming lives on any given day is now the exception not the rule, with at least two more deaths having been reported on Saturday. This raised the number of fatalities from dengue to 13 this year already.
Last year was record breaking for the mosquito-borne disease as, according to the Directorate General of Health Services, 868 people died from dengue in Bangladesh between the years 2000 to 2022. Last year’s dengue epidemic itself saw the death toll above 1,700, more than double than the combined death toll of the preceding 23 years.
There are no two ways about it: The fact that dengue is continuing to wreak havoc is the result of administrative incompetence.
In the capital, both the DSCC and the DNCC failed miserably to contain dengue, which also exposed the innumerable inadequacies of our healthcare infrastructure. It is abundantly clear that Bangladesh needs a better approach to fighting this disease, and that approach must start prioritizing prevention over possible cures.
The potential formulation of a dengue vaccine holds some promise, to that end. However, the plans to release sterile mosquitoes which can curb the population of the dengue-carrying Aedes also held promise but seems to have hit something of a wall -- the government needs to start investing more time and effort into researching such forward-thinking measures to battle dengue.
Bangladesh successfully warded off Covid-19, a pandemic that brought the populations of multiple developed nations to their knees, it is proven that we have what it takes to beat deadly diseases. Our continued struggle with dengue, then, can only be attributed to administrative failings.
