Daily Times

RAWALPINDI: Without any written complaint of negligence, the Health Department has issued show cause notices to the anti-dengue staff.

According to the details, the dengue staff of the health department visited a well known private school for anti-dengue Indoor Residence Spray (IRS) on Friday. After the weekend, when the school reopened and students went to their classrooms, more than 20 students became unconscious and were shifted to a hospital for medical treatment.

The administration of the school complained against negligence of the anti-dengue staff to the Health Department on a phone call. Taking it serious, the Health Department chief executive officer ordered the District Health Officer Dr Tahir Rizvi to probe the matter. He ordered the issue of show cause notices to the sanitary petrol persons Daniyal Tahir and Salahuddin and also ordered their salaries to be put on hold, asking them to submit a written reply.

Sources said that the incident happened due to the negligence of the school administration. They were advised to clean the furniture after a few hours of spraying and to keep the doors of the classrooms open for at least two hours afterwards, but they ignored the instructions of the anti-dengue staff which resulted in the incident.

A senior official wishing anonymity said the anti-dengue staff had applied the IRS in more than 1,800 schools of Rawalpindi but not a single complaint was received from anywhere. This incident happened owing to the negligence of the school staff. It was unfair on their part to be putting the blame on the health department and accusing the innocent.

Dr Tahir Rizvi, who has been assigned the task to probe the matter said, “Show cause notices have been issued to the staff only to make them more punctual so that they follow the standard operating procedures. It is true that the school administration did not submit any written complaint and neither shared the data of the students who suffered from the incident,” he maintained.

Published in Daily Times, September 14^th 2018.