Sri Lanka deploys military as dengue outbreak overwhelms hospitals

Sri Lanka sent army, navy and air force personnel into dengue-control operations and launched a drone sweep over Colombo as the outbreak pushed year-to-date cases to 48,287 and daily hospital admissions above 1,000. Public hospitals were already under strain from energy shortages linked to the Iran war, adding pressure to wards that were absorbing a fast-moving mosquito-borne surge.

The National Dengue Control Unit put the caseload at 5,651 in April and 10,638 in the first two weeks of June. The rise accelerated after Cyclone Ditwah, which left debris and stagnant water that created new mosquito breeding sites. Sri Lanka’s dengue pattern has long followed the monsoon season, but unplanned urbanization and cyclone damage intensified transmission this year.

The June 23 update put Colombo at 10,085 cases and Gampaha at 9,093, with the Western Province carrying much of the burden. Health officials warned that hospitals could be overwhelmed if infections kept climbing. The strain has revived comparisons with the 2017 peak, when Sri Lanka recorded 186,000 dengue cases and 440 deaths.

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake authorized military involvement and assigned officers to help identify and destroy mosquito breeding sites. A three-day dengue prevention drive using drone technology ran in Colombo from June 24 through June 26, organized by the Presidential Secretariat and the Clean Sri Lanka Secretariat.

The current push sits inside Sri Lanka’s National Strategic Plan for Prevention and Control of Dengue 2024 to 2030, which aims for zero dengue-related mortality by 2030. The National Dengue Control Unit, created after the major 2004 outbreak and formally established in 2005, was upgraded in 2012 as a directorate and now coordinates surveillance, vector control, outbreak response, community engagement and clinical management.