A team of experts from the Epidemiology and Disease Control Division (EDCD) is in Chitwan to assess the dengue situation amid increasing cases of the disease.

The team on Sunday talked to the locals and the officials of Ratnanagar Municipality and directed them to bury the ditches and get rid of containers and tyres that hold stagnant water where mosquitoes breed. 

The team will also help local health officials in a campaign to destroy mosquito breeding places to control the spread of the disease.

The EDCD, which is responsible for dealing with disease outbreak, mobilised its officials to Chitwan after over 125 patients in the district were tested positive for dengue. 

Ram Kumar KC, vector control officer at the District Public Health Office, said a majority of the houses they visited had stagnant water and other suitable environment where mosquitoes breed. 

Chitwan was caught in a dengue crisis in 2010/11 when 739 people were infected. Five deaths were reported then.

Dr Bhim Acharya, director of the EDCD, said they have sent dengue testing kits to the health facilities in Chitwan following the dengue outbreak.

“Over 300 testing kits have already been sent and an additional 100 kits were sent on Sunday,” said Dr Acharya. “Now for additional kits we have asked the health officials to procure it locally.”

According to health officials, dengue can become life threatening when the disease develops into a haemorrhagic fever. It is an infectious disease usually contracted from mosquitoes belonging to the Aedes Aegypti genus.

The symptoms range from mild fever to incapacitating high fever, with severe headache, pain in muscles and joints, and rashes.