Act now to help Dengue epidemic

The dreaded Dengue epidemic which plagued the Colombo city in recent weeks has now found its way to the Central hills with the health authorities already pressing panic buttons. Research teams have been dispatched to find out the most likely places harbouring the vector. The Kandy Town, Yatinuwara, Galagedera and Ukuwela are currently witnessing a rapid spread of the epidemic with two deaths already reported.

Warnings too have been issued to the public and business establishments against failure to maintain clean premises and surroundings contributing to breeding grounds of the Dengue mosquito.

These same warnings were also issued by the Colombo Municipal Council to the city dwellers in the wake of the spread of the disease in Colombo City recently. However, we are yet to hear of action taken against any offender.

In the absence of such deterrent action it goes without saying that the problem can only aggravate with the Health authorities routinely giving out statistics of the victims each year.

The Health Ministry allocates a sizable portion of its budget towards preventive health but in the absence of proper enforcement we wonder if these efforts would succeed. In this instance the CMC appears to be the worst offender going by the ubiquitous garbage dumps dotting city landscape.

This lackadaisical attitude apparently has spread to other cities. Perhaps the current internal crisis in the Council has left its duty to the ratepayers take a back seat.

The polluted waterways snaking through the city’s landscape cutting across slums is another carrier of diseases which has escaped the eye of the CMC. Now it appears that this scenario has transposed itself to the salubrious climes of the Hill capital which was once the personification of the Garden city.

The decline should be arrested immediately and city fathers held accountable for the state of affairs in their boroughs.

What the authorities should do is launch on a concerted campaign to keep all cities clean and free from the causes that spawn epidemics without galvanising into action only when the damage is done. Stringent penalties should be imposed on those responsible causing pollution and violating sanitation standards.

This should include those passive spectators who do nothing to keep their environment clean.

This campaign should ideally begin at school level where it will have the greatest impact. The Health Ministry can also come up with incentives to those who keep their surroundings clean and free of the threat of disease.

This on the long run is bound to pay dividends. Hospitals too will be free from undue pressure to cope with patients whose afflictions could well have been prevented through a heightened sense of civic consciousness on the part of all citizens.

Save our treasures

Treasure hunting which was once frequently in the news during the tenure of a former President is once again back in front pages of newspapers.

At the time there was a frenzied hunt for treasure - whether real or imagined - with not only top politicos but even high ups of the Khakied brigade pursuing the stashed gold of our departed monarchs with gusto.

Now we have a similar episode of a former Army Major General in the hunt for the king’s ransom said to have been interred inside a rock plateau at a historic location in Weliweriya.

The treasure hunting party were confronted by irate villagers, set upon and handed over to the law enforcement along with the implements and tools that were to be deployed in the task.

In the recent past we also heard of Buddha statues in certain temples vandalised for hidden treasures. If this frenzy is allowed to continue there is a real danger of our historical artifacts and monuments being damaged and vandalised for treasures by unscrupulous persons.

With the East and now the North cleared of terrorism there is also a distinct possibility of the treasure hunting expeditions being extended to these hitherto no go areas particularly given the recent discovery of a rare Buddhist civilisation and retreats of Sinhala kings of the past in these areas, made by the Archaeologist monk the Ven. Ellawala Medhananda Thera.

It is therefore important that the Cultural

Affairs Ministry takes measures to identify these locations and preserve them from the predators for posterity.

It should also undertake a study of sites that supposedly contain treasures and afford them protection since this wanton vandalism could also erase important landmarks in the country’s historical and cultural past.