Kuna Tripathy

Cuttack, Aug. 17: A pre-recorded voice call about dengue, its prevention and treatment, will soon be forwarded to mobile phone users of the city. The Cuttack Municipal Corporation has taken this initiative, the first of its kind, to spread awareness about the vector-borne disease.

“We have decided to send voice calls to mobile phone users of the city to create awareness about dengue,” said collector Girish S.N. He said the objective of the initiative was to reach out to maximum people. The calls will start from Monday.

Popular television personality and actor Kuna Tripathy has rendered voice for the 30-second call. About four lakh mobile phone subscribers of the city are expected to receive the dengue awareness call.

In the first phase, the call will be made to about 1.48 lakh BSNL mobile subscribers. Other mobile phone service subscribers will get the call later.

The civic body has written to the BSNL authorities to ensure that at least 10,000 calls to the mobile subscribers are made on a daily basis.

“The mobile company will call twice to a user if he or she does not answer the call in the first attempt,” said city health officer P.K. Pradhan. He said each call would cost around 50 paisa and the corporation would spend around Rs 1.5 lakh on the project.

Another civic official said that 592 dengue cases had been reported till August 16.

Though dengue cases were initially reported from two wards of the corporation, more cases were subsequently reported from various other wards. Keeping in view the dengue outbreak in July, a massive sanitation drive was launched from August 1 to August 15 as a part of a state-wide campaign against dengue, malaria and diarrhoea.

The district administration and the corporation have claimed to have taken elaborate measures to create awareness about dengue in all parts of the city. Public announcements, screening of a documentary on dengue, meetings and rallies have also been organised. NGOs, schoolchildren and other volunteers have been roped in to create awareness.

Apart from this, spraying of larvecide oil and fogging operations, bush-cutting and destroying of the breeding sites of the aedes ageypti mosquitoes have also been intensified in the dengue-affected wards, a CMC official said.