Letter on dengue fever

Dear Editor,
I am not surprised to hear from the clinician Dr Niyaf that Maldives could be considered as one of the endemic areas of Dengue Fever. In fact I would say the Maldives is one of the areas and should have been considered long while ago. I had three kids from my family diagnosed with Dengue two years ago and my mother got Chikungunya last year which took her more than six months to recover from.
All these illnessess in Maldives are not something new and have been here for the last five years. The question is how much is the government going to do to eradicate the mosquitoes (the main carriers of the bugs) from the Maldives. When I contacted my local island office last year during the rainy season to spray against the mosquitoes, they simply turned a blind eye to it.
We need a strong and an active campaign to completely eradicate all these mosquitoes by spraying all the inhabitat islands of the Maldives. We cannot stay quiet and put our citizens especially the children at the risk of Dengue Fever and its serious complications. Maldives can be rid of all these mosquitoes.
We did get rid of dirty rats in the late eighties and nineties, why can’t the government do a similar programme against the mosquitoes now? The local island offices, department of public health, NGOs, Ministry of Health, hospitals and of course the Defence Force – we all need to start a campaign to free the Maldives from all these mosquitoes. The developed world did, why cant we such a small country do it? The government needs to atl east initiate and manage such a programme.
Regards,
Ibrahim