Aug 29, Colombo: Once again Sri Lanka media reported that the long awaited BTI bacteria will come to fight the spreading dengue menace which has taken 200 lives this year.

Deputy Health Minister Mahinda Amaraweera has told The Nation that the Health Ministry would start using the locally-manufactured BTI bacteria from Wednesday.

Amaraweera said the Health Ministry was likely to receive the final evaluation report on the BTI from the Industrial Technological Institute (ITI) by Monday.

The Deputy Minister also said that the Ministry had placed the order for 30,000 liters of the Cuban BTI.

The Cuban BTI bacteria are expected to cost around 35 million rupees. However, the Minister says that there will be no more purchasing from Cuba and local bacteria will be used in future.

Senior Research Officer of the Industrial Technology Institute Dr. Radhika Samarasekara told media recently that the local bacteria had already been produced and registered.

She said that the cost for producing BTI locally is much lower than importing it. Institute had planned to produce 20,000 liters of the bacteria at the initial stage, as reported earlier.

The Epidemiology Unit of the Health Ministry reported 28,015 cases of dengue island wide so far this year. However, the month of August has seen a nearly 49 percent drop in number of dengue cases.