Dengue outbreak in a large military station: Have we learnt any lesson?

An outbreak was reported from a large military station located in South India in 2013. In spite of instituting the preventive measures early, it took more than 2 months to bring the outbreak under control. This paper brings out lessons learnt and suggests strategy for controlling similar outbreak in future.

The Military station comprises of 6 large Regimental Centres and many smaller units. The approximate strength of the serving personnel and their families is 25,000. Besides the unit Regimental Medical Officers, a large tertiary care hospital and a Station Health Organization is available to provide health care.

A total of 266 patients including 192 serving personnel and 74 of their dependents were hospitalized for dengue between 15 May 2013 and 28 Jul 2013. Many dependents not having severe symptoms, were not hospitalized and treated on outpatient basis. Health advisories and instructions for constituting Dengue Task Force (DTF) were issued well in advance. Preventive measures were instituted early. But the outbreak was controlled only after intervention from higher administrative authorities. Lessons learnt included correct and timely perception of threat is essential; behavioural change of individuals is desired; availability of adequate health functionaries is mandatory; and complete dataset helps correct perception.

Future strategy for control of dengue outbreak should include repeated and timely survey of entire area for correct risk perception, assessment of behavioural change among individuals; operational research to assess the impact of ongoing public health campaign.