ISLAMABAD: There is no system of disposal of heaps of garbage in rural areas of the federal capital and the lethargy of civic departments has made the waste an ideal breeding ground for house flies and mosquitoes generating dangerous communicable diseases. Heaps of garbage and rubbish dumps on a number of points are not collected and disposed of properly by the departments concerned in the 12 union councils (UCs) in the rural areas of Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT). Health experts are of the view that solid waste management in rural areas of the federal capital is being ignored badly despite the fact that the garbage, animal remnants and corpses posing a grave danger to public health. The population in ICT rural areas has been facing a higher percentage of incidences of communicable diseases for years. In 2015, the population in capital’s rural areas suffered an intense outbreak of dengue fever caused by mosquitoes. According to officials, lack of any system for disposal of solid waste in rural areas of federal capital has resulted in higher number of cases of typhoid, cholera, dysentery and malaria. ICT Health Department Additional District Health Officer Dr Muhammad Najeeb Durrani said that the heaps of garbage provide suitable conditions for breeding of flies and mosquitoes that spread a number of communicable diseases. He said that the ICT Health Department had requested the administrators of the ICT rural areas to give more attention to swift disposal of solid waste to help avoid a number of seasonal infections. Houseflies are recognised as carriers of easily communicable diseases. Flies collect pathogens on their legs and mouths when females lay eggs on decomposing organic matter such as garbage and animal corpses. Houseflies carry diseases on their legs and the small hair that cover their bodies. It takes only a matter of seconds for them to transfer these pathogens to food or touched surfaces. Mature houseflies also use saliva to liquefy solid food before feeding on it. During this process, they transfer the pathogens first collected by landing on offal. Diseases carried by houseflies include typhoid, cholera and dysentery. Other diseases carried by houseflies include salmonella, anthrax and tuberculosis. Houseflies have also been known to transmit the eggs of parasitic worms. According to Dr Durrani, local government officials had given a lot of attention to swift disposal of garbage last year in the wake of a dengue fever outbreak and the ICT Health Department wanted the same level of activity this year too. He said that the ICT Health Department had already launched a surveillance campaign against dengue fever under which the teams of health department are working on elimination of potential breeding sites of mosquitoes larvae but without swift disposal of solid waste, incidence of diseases like dengue fever, malaria, hepatitis, typhoid and cholera could not be prevented.