Fever check

Siliguri, April 29: The Darjeeling district health department has started a fever surveillance programme from last week to keep a track on vector-borne diseases like dengue, Japanese encephalitis, black fever, malaria and chikungunya in the risk-prone areas of the district. According to district health officials, the step is a part of a preventive programme launched earlier this month to check the outbreak of diseases in the district. The risk-prone areas of Siliguri subdivision are Matigara, Phansidewa, Naxalbari-Khoribari and Siliguri. The other areas are Sukna under Kurseong subdivision and Gorubathan and Rambhi in Kalimpong subdivision. “We have asked the health officials to monitor patients who come with fever to the health centres. Our aim is to prevent an outbreak,” said Subir Bhowmik, the district chief medical officer of health. “These are just precautionary measures and people need not be alarmed ,” the CMOH added.