The total fatalities due to mosquito-borne dengue disease hit a single-month high of 99 in November with five new deaths reported on Sunday, according to the Director General of Health Services (DGHS).
On the other hand, some 636 new dengue patients were also hospitalised across the county during the past 24 hours until Sunday morning, according to the DGHS data.
With the new fatalities, the total death toll from dengue reached 382 during the last 11 months of this calendar year while 94,402 people were hospitalised during the period. Of them, 92,025 dengue affected people were recovered during the said period, according to DGHS.
The Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) has recorded the highest fatalities, accounting for 175 deaths out of the total fatalities this year.
On the other hand, some 22,520 dengue infected people were hospitalised in last October, a sharp rise from that of 15,866 in September, according to DGHS data.
Experts, however, feared that the dengue situation may not improve significantly this year and predicted some sort of relief from January next year.
Talking to the FE, they said two major factors -- rainfall and temperature--are linked to the situation of dengue.
The dengue situation may not improve if it may rain or thunderstorms again and the temperature may not fall significantly.
According to experts, rainfall helps the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which spreads the dengue virus, lay eggs for a longer period than usual, fuelling its outbreaks.
With the temperature drop, the situation may improve in January next year.
The present dengue situation might persist in December also as there remain mosquitoes and infections, public health expert Prof Dr Be-Nazir Ahmed said.
Mr. Ahmed, former director (Disease Control), DGHS, said climate change remains one of the major causes of prolonged dengue infection as temperature continues to rise due to the climate effect and moderate temperature ensures a favorable environment for dengue manifestation.
"Poor dengue control management is also a big weakness. We are failing to control dengue through our management," he lamented, adding that insecticides the local government bodies use to control dengue has become less effective and mosquitoes have also developed registrants, he explained.
About the treatment mechanism, Dr Be-Nazir said the government must have a standard and uniform treatment for the patients across the country.
Patients in district and Upazila healthcare facilities are not getting similar treatment to that of Dhaka.
Echoing the same tone, Prof. Kabirul Bashar, an entomologist at Jahangirnagar University, said climate change and poor dengue control management remain major causes for the prevailing dengue situation in.
Due to the fragile situation in the local government across the country-the anti-dengue campaign and cleanliness programmes are being hampered, which contributes to the spread of dengue fast.
He also explained that because of the warm temperature in Bangladesh mosquitoes can now bite after daytime even though there remains enough light in the households.
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