2-day intensive drive against chikungunya in Chennai

Chennai, June 22 (UNI) As part of its anti-chikungunya drive, the Chennai Corporation will embark on a two-day intensive campaign against the disease from tomorrow.

According to the Corporation Health officials here today, over 15,000 workers would be deployed for dawn-to-dusk fogging. A door-to-door survey would also be conducted to identify water stagnant areas and mosquito breeding places.

A city-wide ''combing operation'' would be undertaken in all the ten lakh houses in the city to remove even small water pools accumulated in tyres, coconut shells, broken utensils, plastic pouches and air conditioners, which were breeding grounds for the Aedes mosquitoes.

Pamphlets would be issued to each house to create awareness on prevention of the disease as it was generally found that domestic sources mainly spread chikungunya, the officials said.

Like last year, this year too officials have decided to rely on children to spread the message of the anti-mosquito drive in their homes.

School principals and headmasters would prepare messages to be delivered during prayer meetings and in classrooms and would get feedback from the students at regular intervals on the removal of stagnant water in their homes.

''The Corporation has kept stock of drugs and insecticides to prevent an epidemic. We are keeping a regular check on the larval density and adult mosquito prevalence in every zone in the city.

The situation is under control,'' the officials added.

UNI