The DCC has chalked out an emergency programme that includes deployment of "Rapid Action Force" comprising one supervisor, one cleaning inspector, ten cleaners and ten spray men at each municipal ward, and an elaborate sensitisation scheme. Letters have been sent to several ministries and funds allocated to purchase loudspeakers to disseminate the survey findings and the measures to be taken for prevention of dengue attack. The programme sounds all right; however, we cannot help wonder why the DCC had to wait so long to put it together.

This is one area in which the DCC has unfailingly failed over the years. It simply refuses to learn from previous experiences. Last year, some 5,000 cases of dengue infection were reported and 126 people died of haemorrhagic fever and shock syndrome. It seems the DCC has been caught napping this time around as well.

Incidence of dengue is a seasonal phenomenon in a tropical country such as ours. Therefore, the DCC should have been on guard well before the season set in so that Aedes population remained in check. Unfortunately, for one reason or the other, it has multiplied to alarming proportions. Nevertheless, we expect the government, especially the health ministry, to involve all relevant ministries and agencies in a crash programme to decimate the Aedes population in the shortest span of time. At the same time, the healthcare outlets, both public and private, should be kept on alert and well equipped to handle the situation in case there is an outbreak.