As fears mount with the rising number of dengue fever reported in the city recently, authorities have taken stringent measures to combat the newly-emerging infectious disease. At least 40 new cases of the deadly disease have been reported across the holy city including Al-Shara'ie, Al-Mo'aisim, Jabal Al-Noor and Al-Ghassalah districts over the last few months. But the cases surged in the last two weeks with 20 of them reported with King Faisal Hospital (KFH). Health teams have been intensifying their mosquito eradication efforts on daily basis spraying pesticides and removing garbage and stagnant water where mosquitoes breed. Hani Al-Hassan, head of internal medicine department at KFH said stagnant water swamps in the affected districts have been targeted as breeding grounds for the mosquitoes transmitting the disease. The reappearance of the disease has been fueled by recent rains which have created huge mosquito breeding sites across the city.
