Daily Times

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka announced Monday it was intensifying its war on dengue fever, with schools to shut across the island to help curb the unprecedented outbreak of the mosquito-borne virus that has claimed nearly 300 lives.

The Red Cross also announced it was scaling up its emergency response to the country’s worst-ever outbreak of the disease as the number of dengue cases topped 100,000. That figure is nearly double the previous year, with doctors warning hospitals were beyond capacity as medics struggled to treat a new strain of the disease.

The education ministry said schools would shut from Friday for four days as tens of thousands of volunteers join government officials and soldiers in targeting mosquito breeding grounds. “Instructions have gone out to all schools today to coordinate with local authorities and look for any mosquito breeding areas in their immediate neighbourhood,” a ministry official said.

Published in Daily Times, July 25^th 2017.