DAR ES SALAAM, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- Tanzanian Minister for Health, Ummy Mwalimu, said on Thursday the east African nation was on track to controlling the outbreak of dengue fever.
"In September 2019, there were only 10 reported cases of dengue fever in the country and nobody was killed by the disease during the month," she told a news conference in the commercial capital Dar es Salaam.
Since the outbreak of dengue fever was first reported in January 2019 to Sept. 30, 6,785 people were diagnosed with the disease across the country that killed 13 of them.
"But from July to September this year, cases of dengue fever are going down," said the minister.
Mwalimu said there were 732 cases of dengue fever in July and 92 cases were reported in August, dropping to 10 cases in September.
She said of the 10 cases, four were reported at the Muhimbili National Hospital, the country's leading medical referral facility in the commercial capital Dar es Salaam, and six cases were reported in coastal city of Tanga.
"We are still working hard to control the disease and the figures can testify our efforts," said Mwalimu.
On July 4, Mwalimu said the government had drawn up an ambitious national plan of destroying mosquito breeding grounds in residential areas to control the spread of malaria disease and the outbreak of dengue fever.
She said other measures that had been taken to contain the spread of the disease included offering free diagnostic services for dengue fever across all public hospitals and health centers.
The Medical Stores Department had bought and dispatched a total of 30,000 test kits for dengue fever to various public health facilities, she said.
This year's dengue outbreak was the worst in Tanzania compared with 2014 when more than 400 people in Dar es Salaam were diagnosed with the disease, which killed at least three, including a doctor who reportedly caught it while attending to patients.
Symptoms of dengue fever typically begin three to 14 days after infection, which may include high fever, headache, vomiting, muscle and joint pain, and a characteristic skin rash.
