The private sector has been roped into the dengue prevention effort in the light of a drastic rise in dengue cases islandwide.
The number of dengue fever affected people in 2015 was 29,777. In 2016, it was 55,154. Around 70,000 have been reported infected in the first five months of 2017 alone and the total number of dengue affected people is expected to rise. A Director of the National Health Development Fund, Dinesh Weerakkody, the coordinator of the project said that this is an initiative of the Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and Health Minister Dr. Rajitha Senarathne to engage the private sector in the dengue awareness campaign of the Ministry of Health (MOH), given the challenges the Ministry of Health is currently facing to deal with the problem.
According to Medical professionals the problem in Sri Lanka warrants urgent intervention and the State alone cannot
eradicate dengue. Individual responsibility is very much higher than that of the State.
But the State’s responsibility is considerable nevertheless in the areas of garbage collection and effective patient treatment. There are specific aspects that the public should take care of in order to control this scourge according to health officials.
The private sector led campaign for the Dengue Prevention and Control is through a Private-Public Partnership according to Dr Hasitha Tissera of the National Dengue Control Unit. The expectations according to Ministry of Health from the partnership would be to create awareness to;
= To prevent any late presentation to hospital and achieve zero deaths
= To reduce Potential breeding places from 100% to less than 10%
= To reduce Positive breeding places from 50% to less than 5%
According to Dinesh Weerakkody Private Sector companies can immediately help the effort of the MOH by doing weekly premises inspections and having a weekly cleaning days and displaying the MOH material in their premises.