24 March 2017 08:32 am
Responding to a question raised by the Joint Opposition Parliamentary Group leader Dinesh Gunawardena in the House, the prime minister said the spread of dengue in Sri Lanka and the spread of other diseases in other countries in Asia were parts of one health crisis in the region.
"Diseases such as fever and even bird flu are spreading in Asia, and millions of poultry are being destroyed in South Korea today. And the spread of diseases in Sri Lanka may be a part of this crisis,” he said.
He said the government had focused on the spread of dengue in Sri Lanka and was doing its utmost to control it.
Minister Rauff Hakeem, who joined in the cross talk, said nearly 800 members of the security forces had been deployed to prevent the spread of disease.
Mr. Gunawardena asked what steps the government had taken to control dengue. He said the government should have accurate figures on the number of people who had died of dengue this year and on how many had been hospitalised.
He said the cause of death had been given as fever in some cases, although the patients might have died of dengue.
Leader of the House Lakshman Kiriella said dengue could have been prevented in Sri Lanka years ago if Sri Lanka had taken the same precautions that Cuba had taken to curb the disease. (Yohan Perera and Ajith Siriwardana)