Cuttack, May 24: The recent detection of three dengue cases from Jagatpur has forced the district administration to chalk out a long-term plan to contain the disease outbreak this monsoon.

A pre-monsoon sanitation drive will shortly be launched to check the possibility of a dengue outbreak in the current hot and humid weather condition.

However, government sources said all the three patients from Jagatpur, who were found dengue positive, had recently travelled to Calcutta and other areas.

As a precautionary measure, steps will be taken to destroy the breeding sites of aedes aegypti mosquitoes, the known carriers of the dengue virus.

The sanitation drive assumes significance as 1,073 dengue cases were reported in Cuttack in 2013, and 297 cases in 2014. Last year, only 54 dengue cases were reported from the city.

Chief district medical officer Prafulla Behera told The Telegraph that Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) officials had already been asked to conduct a sanitation drive from the first week of June.

"We have decided to carry out a sanitation and bush-cutting drive for 10 days from June 1," said Behera.

More than 150 anganwadi workers will be roped in to create awareness among the people of the district, while a dengue test centre will be set up at Sishu Bhavan this year for the first time.

"We will shortly conduct a training programme for lab technicians and others at Sishu Bhavan so that blood samples for suspected dengue patients can be tested here," Behera added.

Another district administration officer said the focus would be on creating awareness to ensure that rainwater did not accumulate in air coolers, earthen pots, tyres, empty coconut shells and other objects that have a hard surface.

Pravat Das, an advocate and resident of the city, said: "There is an urgent need to come up with a timely and long-term strategy to check a dengue outbreak as the excessively humid weather might cause a spurt in dengue cases this year."

He added that the construction sites of the Japan International Co-operation Agency-assisted sanitation work might become major breeding grounds for dengue-carrier mosquitoes.

Dinesh Bharadwaj, a resident of Balu Bazaar, said: "Last year, the dengue situation was under control only because of the timely measures undertaken by the civic body and the district administration. We hope that the officialstake up similar initiatives this year as well."

The CMC has already started a drain cleaning operation, while the upcoming sanitation drive will cover all 59 wards in the city. "We hope to combat the dengue outbreak this year as the drain cleaning job, which is crucial for checking the mosquito population, has already started. Steps will also be taken to check accumulation of rainwater at various construction sites in the city," said Ranjan Biswal, chairman of the civic body's standing committee on public health.