With the rising incidents of dengue fever, sale of insecticide sprays, mosquito coils and electric mosquito rackets, mosquito repellent lotions and mosquito nets are also rising sharply. Retailers said that demands for such mosquito repellents and mosquito killing insecticides have increased to a great extent as people are rush buying such items to prevent dengue infection.
This was clearly evident during visits to a number city markets places including Gulisthan, Karwan Bazar, Farmgate, Mirpur and other parts of the capital. Many customers alleged that in such an emergency situation, trader have reportedly inflated prices of these products, and most of them said they cannot afford high prices.
“As the dengue infection is rising at an alarming rate, we are trying to stay away from Aedes mosquitos, so that we are here to buy anti mosquito sprays or repellents from the markets. However, price ofmost of the products seem too high,” said Farhan, a private university student. Sayed Ahmed has been selling mosquito nets for the last decade and a half. Sharing his experiences of selling nets at high prices, he said, “I have never before sold so many nets and that too at so high prices. There is constant demand and we are often unable to cope with such pressure.”
Like mosquito nets, mosquito sprays and coils, mosquito rackets sale have also increased. Traders said that demands for such items have shot up which never happened before. From the Karwan Bazar it was learnt that, almost every brand’s mosquito sprays and coils prices have doubled. Earlier, sprays, which were selling at Tk 80 are now above Tk 120. A trader of Karwan Bazar Kitchen Market Md Yusuf told this correspondent that, before they used to sell 20-30 carton of sprays but now they are selling more than 40 cartons. However, he said, price of aerosol remain as usual.
On the other hand, there are more than 50 brands of mosquito coils in the market. Wholesale traders alleged that even though they did not increase prices, retailers and local area traders have taken advantage of the demands.
