DAR ES SALAAM, July 4 (Xinhua) -- Tanzanian health authorities said on Thursday that cases of dengue fever in the commercial capital Dar es Salaam have gone down from 2,759 reported in May to 790 in June.
Ummy Mwalimu, the east African nation's Minister for Health, said great efforts had been made to contain the disease in Dar es Salaam and that the number of patients suffering from the disease had substantially gone down.
She said the government has drawn up an ambitious national plan of destroying mosquito breeding grounds in residential areas to control the spread of malaria disease and the outbreak of dengue fever.
Measures have been taken to contain the spread of the disease, including offering free diagnostic services for dengue fever across all public hospitals and health centers in the east African nation, Mwalimu said.
The Medical Stores Department (MSD) had bought and dispatched a total of 30,000 test kits for dengue fever to various public health facilities, she said.
On June 21, Mwalimu told parliament that the death toll from dengue fever had risen from two in May to four in June as 4,000 people were reported to have been diagnosed with the disease across the country.
The government confirmed dengue fever outbreak in March when it said 11 people were diagnosed with the disease in Dar es Salaam.
This year's dengue outbreak is the worst in Tanzania compared with 2014 when more than 400 people in Dar es Salaam were diagnosed with the disease, which killed at least three, including a doctor who reportedly caught it while attending to patients.
Symptoms of dengue fever typically begin three to 14 days after infection, which may include high fever, headache, vomiting, muscle and joint pain, and a characteristic skin rash.
