Amid coronavirus panic among people of Bangladesh, the risk of dengue, an Aedes mosquito-borne disease, has created as the country witnessed on and off rainfall due to change if weather.
Epidemiology and health experts said aedes mosquitoes grow from concealed larvae because of on and off rainfall that was seen with stormy wind last two nights.
The risk of death after being affected by dengue fever will rise if breeding grounds of the mosquito is not destroyed from right now, they warned.
They also suggested to take precautionary measure to tackle novel coronavirus (COVID-19) that spread to more than 80 countries from its origin China, killing as many as 3,283 people and infecting 95,036.
The virus panic gripped people here as 29 cases of the virus were confirmed in neighbouring India.
Presided over by Health and Family Welfare Minister Zahid Malik, an inter-ministerial meeting held on Wednesday to discuss latest update of the new virus, and dengue.
All the attendees stressed need of destroying aedes mosquito breeding places from March besides steps to prevent coronavirus.
Mentioning that the number of dengue-related death surpassed a lakh last year, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) chief Prof Doctor Abul Kalam Azad said there will more death risk although number of patients are lower this year.
He said, "If the people sufferred dengue fever last year catch the disease again this year, risk of death from it will crease."
He called upon authorities concerned, including city corporations, to pay attention from right now in coordinated programmes to prevent dengue outbreak.
Jahangirnagar University (JU) Prof Kabirul Bashar who also attended the meeting opined to destroy aedes mosquito's breeding sites not only in city-town but also in villages as around half of total dengue patients were from villages.
According to statistics of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of DGHS, more than a lakh people were hospitalized with dengue fever across the country in 2019. Among them, over 150 died.
Earlier the dengue emerged in Bangladesh for the first time in 2000 when the country reported as many as 93 dengue-related death and 5,551 cases of the viral fever.