RAWALPINDI: The district health department on Monday started the process of recruiting 350 more workers for the antidengue campaign in the city.

`More than 5,000 candidates submitted applications and the recruitment will be made after consultation with the district coordination ofHcer and localleaders of the ruling PML-N,` said an official of the health department.

He added that 1,067 workers had already been working with the health department since August 2015. The workers were recruited on a temporary basis only for the anti-dengue campaign in the city and cantonment areas.

The 1,067 workers were hired in April last year but their appointment letters were issued in August.

`Due to the delay in the issuance of the appointment letters, the city government started the campaign on August 22, 2015.

The staff was not trained properly and they faced problems in running the campaign effectively and more than 6,000 dengue patients arrived in the government hospitals during the year,` he said.

`The current process of recruiting more staff started in February but the new workers will join the force in the summer,` he said.

Meanwhile, the city government started an indoor surveillance in Potohar Town`s 16 urban union councils to eliminate the dengue mosquito breeding sites.

However, no surveillance has been launched in the Rawal Town, comprising Raja Bazaar, Satellite Town and other thickly-populated areas.

`We started the indoor surveillance in 16 union councils.

In the first phase, 727 houses will be fumigated from where the dengue patients had arrived in the hospitals last year,` said Dr Ansar Ishaq, the district officer and incharge of Potohar Town.

He said under the directives of the government, anti-dengue medicines would also be sprayed in all mosques, seminaries, schools, colleges and public places.