05 June 2004	Saturday	16 Rabi-us-Saani 1425

PESHAWAR, June 4: A World Health Organization report has confirmed presence of virus in water supplied in some villages of Haripur district where an outbreak of dengue haemorrhage fever claimed lives of eight people last year.

A team comprising Dr Quaid Saeed, a Peshawar-based emergency medical officer of WHO, and Prof Mohammad Suleman, chairman of Peshawar University's zoology department, collected water samples from localities where most of the cases of dengue haemorrhage had been reported.

The WHO report said that dengue and dengue haemorrhage fever were mosquito-borne viral diseases that spread like an epidemic in many villages of Haripur district and the neighbouring Attock district of Punjab in October 2003.

Several dengue patients were brought to the district headquarters hospital, Haripur. A team from the National Institute of Health collected blood samples from suspected patients and sent them to the WHO collaborating centre in South Africa for serological and PCR tests.

Seven of the blood samples turned out to be positive for dengue. Subsequently, the WHO warned the NWFP government to take preventive measures against the epidemic.

During the WHO survey, the report said, water samples were taken from water storages in houses, a gas station, swampy water bodies downstream the Mang Dam and industrial units for test.

The WHO report said the breeding season for mosquitoes (May-July) could play havoc with the public health. It warned people in the Haripur district to use bed nets and sprinkle kerosene on water pools. It also issued guidelines for doctors to identify the victims of dengue fever and provide treatment to them accordingly.