KATHMANDU: Nepal Congress (NC) General Secretary Gagan Kumar Thapa has said that dengue was spreading of late as Nepali government had not learned any lesson from the coronavirus pandemic.

Speaking at the second national conference of the Nepal Medical Association (NMA) on Tuesday, Thapa, who is also a former health minister, said that the lack of preparedness of the government was the main reason for the spread of dengue of late.

“From COVID-19 to dengue today, we failed to learn many things. Having learned from Covid, it seemed that the government did not make the necessary preparations as dengue began to spread,” he said.

“If we scrutinize the decisions of the Nepal government following the Covid-19 pandemic, looking at the budget at the time and other aspects, we find the government has not shown much interest to build resilient health structures.”

NC General Secretary Thapa stressed that the political parties ought to make health awareness an agenda for the upcoming elections so as to prevent various diseases.