August 19, 2003	Tuesday	Jumadi-us-Sani 20, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, Aug 18: After the complaints of ‘Ashob-i-Chasham’ (viral conjunctivitis) subsided, the twin cities are in the grip of viral pharyngitis, painful inflammation of pharynx.

A senior doctor in the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) told Dawn that he was daily receiving a large number of patients, infected with viral pharyngitis, which spread usually during monsoon.

He said the disease, which usually took four to five days before the patient was completely recovered, would continue to spread during the current month, after which it would die down.

If a patient has simple viral pharyngitis, then his symptoms should ease gradually over a period of about one week. If someone has strep throat, then the symptoms probably will subside within two to three days after he/she starts taking antibiotics.

The doctor said people should avoid close contacts and shaking hands with the patients because mini respiratory droplets could transfer disease from one person to another.

He suggested that the patients should take high protein food to recover from the weakness caused by the infection. He said the disease usually spread in poorly ventilated rooms and in crowded environment, where the virus, which caused pharyngitis, spread easily through the droplets of coughs and sneezes.

The main symptom of any type of pharyngitis, he said, was sore throat. In infectious pharyngitis, other symptoms vary depending on whether the infection was bacterial (usually strep throat) or viral, he said. He said sore throat could be accompanied by fever, pain on swallowing, malaise, headache, redness and swelling in the throat, a coating on the tonsils or tongue, and swollen, tender lymph nodes (swollen glands). Children also can have nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain.

To prevent viral and bacterial throat infections, the doctor said, people should wash hands frequently. If someone has pharyngitis in house, then he/she should keep their eating utensils and drinking glasses separate from those of other family members.

Our Staff Reporter from Pindi adds: The outbreak of viral Kerato conjunctivitis has subsided, but the situation is still not fully under control, doctors said on Monday.

The outbreak has exposed the ability of the health department to handle such incidents.

A doctor said: “Had the health department planned well in advance, the problem could have been effectively controlled.” The health department’s main job was to create awareness among the people about the problem, telling them how to protect themselves from it.

“There was nothing of this sort from either the provincial or the district health department before the occurrence of the disease,” the doctor said, and added that their response afterwards was no better either.

Citing his experiences with the patients suffering from the disease, another doctor said, lack of awareness created problems. He said he came across patients, who had been taking steroids to counter the problem, though use of steroids was contra-indicative in such situations.

He said the dimensions attained by this disease during this monsoon was also a result of lack of awareness among the patients.

Dr Abid Shah, executive district officer (health), defended the response of his department to the outbreak, saying it tried to create awareness among the masses through its channel of doctors and lady health workers.

He, however, conceded that a more intense awareness campaign could not be launched due to paucity of funds.

One of the doctors said: “The health department could have rushed large quantities of eye drops, which are actually quite inexpensive, along with teams of doctors to those city areas where the problem was more rampant,” he said.