October 24, 2003	Friday	Sha’aban 27, 1424

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HARIPUR, Oct 23: The National Institute of Health on Thursday confirmed detecting dengue fever virus in 10 of the 11 blood samples collected from Haripur, urging health authorities to prepare a plan to prevent future outbreaks of the disease.

An outbreak of dengue fever was reported from various villages in Pandak, Bareela and Sera-i-Nehmat Khan union councils, where six persons, including three women, had died while scores of others had been hospitalized, carrying the symptoms of the disease during the past two weeks.

Officials in Haripur have consistently been denying the possibility of dengue fever outbreak.

Local health authorities sounded the alarm only after teams of the military’s medical wing scoured the area for dengue virus-carrying mosquito after the death of a cadet, who had died after infecting 22 others camped at Pind Mehri, a village bordering Punjab in the Haripur district in September.

Three other cadets, provincial officials of the World Health Organization confirmed, had also been diagnosed to be infected by the disease.

Dr Ejaz Masood, an specialist at the DHQ, who had invited the NIH teams and entomologists from the provincial headquarters, said that blood samples of over 50 patients had been collected from affected villages. These samples, he added, had been sent to South Africa for virology profiling.

He said that it was the first time in the past 50 years that the disease had struck the Haripur area, adding that its mortality rate was between two and three persons in 1,000 patients.

Dr Ejaz, however, conceded that of the seven deaths recorded in the area during the past two weeks, clinical findings indicated that 23-year-old Mubashar Kastoor had died of haemorrhagic dengue fever.

Advising the people not to panic, he said that the disease was a self-limiting one with symptoms lasting between seven and 15 days, adding that people affected by the disease should increase their fluid and carbohydrate intakes. He urged the authorities to eliminate its prospective causative agents, mosquitoes known as Aedes aegyptii.

He asked the people in affected areas to immediately contact him on No 0995-611850 or the EDO (health) at 0995-621030 if they found red rashes developing on their bodies, swellings on foot or mouth along with fever.

Other symptoms, he said, included vomiting, backache, nausea, insomnia, orbital and abdominal pains.