Opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party on Saturday asked the government to provide free treatment to all dengue patients and allocate required subsidy for it.

BNP secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir made the demand at a press conference after a meeting of the party’s standing committee at the party chairperson’s office at Gulshan in Dhaka in the evening.

Saying that the government has utterly failed to tackle the dengue menace, he said the foreign trip of the health minister amid dengue outbreak, his statement on return and the two Dhaka  mayors’ remarks about the outbreak, proved that the government was in a mess, let alone tackle the situation.

He asked the government to use the community centres in Dhaka as temporary medical camps for treating dengue patients as the hospitals were overflowing with patients.

The BNP leader said they do not think that the government would be able to import effective pesticides to kill mosquitoes immediately.

He also said the Doctors Association of Bangladesh would open an advice centre at the BNP’s central office for the dengue patients.

He alleged that the government was obstructing their dengue awareness rallies.

The BNP secretary general said that they would continue their on-going dengue awareness campaigns in Dhaka and elsewhere in the country.

The government data show that at least 18 people died of dengue and 22,919 were hospitalised this year while unofficial reports show that at least 59 people died of the disease so far.

He said the standing committee also discussed issues including the movement for freeing jailed party chairperson Khaleda Zia who was now in jail since February 8, 2018, the day when she had been convicted in a graft case.

‘Our movement will be strengthened after Eid-ul-Azha and the divisional rallies would continue then,’ he said, adding that alongside street agitation, the party would continue legal battle in court to free Khaleda.

Fakhrul said that they came to know that that the World Bank had blacklisted Tiger IT, the company that produced smart cards for the Election Commission, due to corruption and urged the government and the election commission to issue explanations in this regard.

He demanded agricultural rehabilitation for the flood affected farmers.

‘We have formed a committee led by our party vice-chairman Abdul Awal Mintu for taking programmes for agricultural rehabilitation of the flood affected people,’ he said.