Sri Lanka has recorded 107,651 dengue cases so far this year and 81 deaths, the National Dengue Control Unit said on Monday, as a special mosquito control programme got under way across the island.
Of the annual total, 1,399 cases were reported in the first seven days of November alone, NewsFirst reported.
July remains the worst month of 2026, with 29,964 patients — more than a quarter of the year’s caseload in a single month. The highest district counts have come from Gampaha, Colombo and Kandy.
Larvae densities rising
Acting Director of the National Dengue Control Unit Dr. Kapila Kannangara said a special mosquito control programme would be launched from Monday in response to the prevailing situation, and that mosquito larvae densities are increasing rapidly in around 130 Medical Officer of Health (MOH) divisions.
Thirty-seven MOH divisions have currently been identified as high-risk areas.
That figure sits alongside a larger one. The Health Ministry’s special National Dengue Prevention Week, which runs from Monday to 14 November, covers 74 high-risk MOH divisions — twice the number NewsFirst reports as currently high-risk. The two counts were issued by the same unit within a day of each other and the filings do not explain the difference; one may describe the areas selected for the campaign and the other the areas meeting a risk threshold at this moment. This desk has not been able to reconcile them.
Rain is the driver
The surge follows sustained rain across the southwest. Flash flooding hit Colombo on 6 November, reservoir spill gates were opened over the weekend, and more than 100mm of rain was forecast for several areas on Sunday. Aedes mosquitoes breed in small pockets of standing water, and case numbers characteristically climb several weeks after heavy rainfall — the window health authorities are trying to get ahead of.
The prevention week deploys joint inspection teams to find and destroy breeding sites, with particular attention to unoccupied premises, and runs cleaning programmes at schools, Pirivenas, universities and religious places.
Not reported
NewsFirst does not give a provincial breakdown, district case numbers, the comparable total for 2025, or how many of the 81 deaths occurred in recent weeks. It does not name the 37 high-risk divisions or say what threshold defines them, and it gives no target or budget for the control programme.
Figures in this report are the National Dengue Control Unit’s cumulative counts as reported on 9 November 2026. Earlier counts published in late October and early November — around 105,500 cases and 79 deaths — are superseded by these numbers, not in conflict with them.
