Teachers and students running dengue awareness campaign are at risk in absence of protective gear.

An awareness campaign has been started in the city of Lahore on orders from the higher educationauthorities. Teachers from different schools and colleges are being assigned duties in various areas to sensitise the public about dengue virus. However, the teachers have neither been provided ample training or protective gear. They are also required to run the campaign outdoors, on roadside green belts and in the parks, thus risking their own lives.

A teacher, requesting anonymity, said that he has contracted dengue as he had been performing outdoor duties under the ordered campaign. He said a teacher of Govt College for Women, Cooper Road died of dengue.

The teachers running the Punjab government’s dengue campaign are constantly monitored by the higherofficials while their attendance is also taken in the field.

According to a report, in another such initiative, 162 senior schoolteachers have been ordered order to monitor the dengue prevention measures in more than 6,500 private educational institutions of Lahore.

The report says the 162 senior teachers include headmasters, deputy headmasters, senior subject specialists and subject specialists in all union councils of the Lahore district and all sectors of Lahore Cantonment Board.

Lahore Education Executive District Officer (EDO) Pervez Akhter has issued show cause notices to around 500 private schools after they failed to fumigate their campuses.