Dengue cases have risen in seven of Sri Lanka’s nine provinces under the prevailing wet weather, and the National Dengue Control Unit will run special mosquito eradication programmes in 13 districts from 9 to 14 November.
Director of the National Dengue Control Unit Dr. Kapila Kannangara said cases had increased in the Western, Southern, Sabaragamuwa, Uva, Northern, Eastern and Central provinces, NewsFirst reported at 9:40 a.m. Colombo time on Sunday.
Mosquito larval density has increased in around 130 divisional secretariat divisions, he said. The eradication drive will run in 13 districts over six days in the second week of November.
The year’s toll
About 105,500 dengue cases have been reported nationally so far in 2026, with the death toll at 79.
Both figures continue a steady climb through the second half of the year. This site recorded 93,635 cases and 71 deaths on 22 August and 98,249 cases in mid-September. The progression — roughly 7,000 cases in the four weeks to mid-September and about 7,250 in the six weeks since — indicates the rate of new infection has not accelerated sharply even as the rains have set in, though the absolute burden continues to grow.
Eight deaths have been added since the August count.
This closes a question left open in October
On 16 October the control unit warned that dengue was rising again with the rains and said a new control programme would follow “within two weeks”. That article recorded the absence of a date, a district list and a scale as the open questions.
Sunday’s filing answers them: 9–14 November, 13 districts. The programme is arriving later than the two-week horizon suggested in mid-October.
A measurement caution carried forward
The figure of about 130 divisions should be read with care. In this filing the unit is the divisional secretariat division — an administrative unit of local government.
This site’s September reporting on dengue prevention week used the Medical Officer of Health division, the public-health unit, which does not map one-to-one onto divisional secretariats. An earlier NewsFirst dengue filing in October also gave “130” in a way that conflated a breeding index with a count of divisions. The number carried here is the one today’s filing states explicitly — a count of divisional secretariat divisions with increased larval density — and it should not be compared directly against MOH-division counts published earlier in the year.
Dr. Kannangara was described as the unit’s acting director in October reporting and as its director here; the filing does not address the change in designation.
What the unit is asking
The control unit has urged the public to destroy potential mosquito breeding sites to prevent further spread. Aedes aegypti breeds in small volumes of clean standing water — discarded containers, tyres, roof gutters and plant saucers — and the accumulation of such sites during sustained rain is the mechanism behind the seasonal rise.
The appeal coincides with a wet forecast: the Met Department expects showers over five provinces and two districts this afternoon, with falls above 50 millimetres at some places.
Not reported
The filing does not name the 13 districts, so readers cannot tell whether the drive covers the same seven provinces in which cases have risen. It does not say what the programmes will involve — inspections, fogging, larvicide, prosecutions — or who will carry them out. It gives no case or death figures by province or district, and no comparison against the same period in 2025.
Single verified source. This report was carried by NewsFirst, a verified newsroom. No other verified outlet had filed on Sunday’s statement at the time of writing; Ada Derana remains unreachable behind a CloudFront block.
