KARACHI, March 3: A three-year-old girl from Saeedabad area, with symptoms similar to Congo virus, was brought to the Isolation Ward of Civil Hospital on Saturday, where an 11-year-old boy has already been awaiting confirmation of the disease since early this week.

On Thursday, a boy from Landhi died in the National Institute of Child Health of causes which doctors at the hospital linked to suspected Congo virus.

All of these three children had remained in contact with animals, mostly goats and sheep possibly infected with Congo virus. The virus is said to be passed on to humans through the ticks attached to skin and hair roots of infected animals. Humans could contract the virus through the stings of these ticks.

Once inside the human body, the virus remains in incubation for at least 13 days, before early symptoms of the disease manifest themselves. In the initial stage, an infected person has high-grade fever accompanied by shivering. Some days later, the patient invariably begins to bleed from all body orifices.

Because of lack of diagnostic facilities and the rare occurrence of this virus in Karachi, such cases are often perceived as malaria, during early symptoms of presentation, as has happened in the cases of the three children mentioned above. The three children, hailing from low-income families, were brought to the hospital, after they started bleeding all over. Two of them are under the care of paediatricians from the hospital.

The two children in the CHK Isolation Ward with suspected Congo virus are being given prophylactic treatment for the virus, along with symptomatic treatment of their symptoms. Results of their blood samples, sent to the National Institute of Health in Islamabad, are likely to take some time to come back to the hospital. This problem also highlights the absence of a proper facility in this megacity of 14 million, to carry out important diagnostic tests for viral and bacteriological infections.

The three-year old girl, Saba, has five other siblings. Her father, a driver, has practically deserted the family, after marrying the second time about three months ago. Fahd, the 11-year-old patient, lived in Garden area and had spent a great deal of time with animals brought for Eid-ul-Azha by his family and neighbours living in the building complex.

Prof Shahana Urooj Kazmi, the Head of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology and Infectious Diseases Laboratory at Karachi University, told Dawn that a possible explanation why only so far children had reported with symptoms of Congo fever was that children generally had lower immunity levels against viral infections. She said children who were mal- nourished and had weaker defence mechanisms were particularly at risk. Animals brought from Balochistan, where Congo virus was endemic, for sale on Eid-ul- Azha might the possible source of infection in the city, she added.

She emphasized upon the need for having a detailed investigation of the epidemiology and origin of the virus on a countrywide scale and to know the causes of how the virus is spreading in our environment. There is also a pressing need for the setting up of fully-equipped diagnostic laboratories for viral diseases in all provinces of the country, Prof Shahana said. At present, the National Institute of Health in Islamabad is the only place where serological tests relating to viral infections are conducted.

She said since there was no vaccine against Congo virus, preventive aspects of the disease were important. People working in cattle farms and their children were at greater risk, and their ignorance about the disease made them particularly vulnerable.

The Sindh Health Department has instructed all major hospitals working under it to remain on high alert for possible cases of Congo fever.