Following the death of a six-year-old boy due to dengue, the Department of Public Health and the local body have jointly started anti-dengue operations at Puliyampatti near Sankarankovil.
Besides deploying medical teams for conducting door-to-door check looking for the people, especially children, suffering from fever, the department is collecting blood samples of suspected cases to be sent for analysis for dengue.
On its part, the rural local body has intensified cleaning operations to remove discarded plastic and rubber products which could provide a breeding ground for mosquitoes.
When the news of the death of Lingeswaran due to dengue reached the sleepy Puliyampatti on Wednesday evening, the agitated villagers blocked Sankarankovil–Rajapalayam Main Road for more than an hour. They complained that their repeated appeals to their village panchayat for launching a massive cleaning operation in the hamlet to avert a possible dengue outbreak was not given due attention.
The local body, following stringent warning from the Assistant Director of Panchayats, started cleaning operations only after the village lost one of its citizens, they complained.
The protestors were pacified with the assurance that all-out efforts would be taken to weed out dengue from Puliyampatti.
After Thalarkulam near Mukkoodal in the district witnessed dengue outbreak before the start of northeast monsoon last year, anti-dengue operations were conducted in an intense manner to contain the disease.
