26 September 2004	Sunday	10 Shaban 1425

ISLAMABAD, Sept 25: The government on Saturday set up a task force comprising officials of the National Institute of Health and Agriculture and Livestock Departments to prevent the outbreak of the suspected Congo fever.

A government announcement said the National Institute of Health (NIH) in the wake of recent death of suspected "Crimean Congo haemorrhagic fever" (CCHF) has also alerted the Punjab Health Department and is providing technical guidance in this regard.

These steps have been taken after reports came to light that a doctor who had attended a patient of suspected Congo fever at Rawalpindi General Hospital had developed fever.

Two blood samples of the remaining relatives of the deceased had also been taken by NIH for further investigations.

The government has strongly recommended the use of Ribazole, a drug of choice to treat suspected Congo fever. The provinces have also been asked to ensure sufficient stock of the medicine at the District Headquarters Hospitals.

The health ministry has initiated a training course for health care providers at the provincial as well as the district level for the management of Congo fever and other communicable diseases through the Disease Early Warning System (DEWS).

The NIH has also produced national guideline on case definition, management and prevention of infectious diseases, which provide proper interventions to the respective provincial health departments, hospitals and EDOs Health, responsible for the purchase of medicines and taking other precautionary measures.

The guidelines also ask the agriculture and livestock departments to develop a plan and spray chemicals on the cattle sheds to kill infected ticks, the apparent source of CCHF.

A mass campaign would also be initiated to create awareness among the masses about the Congo fever.

Meanwhile, an official source told Dawn that the government was also trying to acquire doses of intravenous vaccines - an expensive drug to treat the patient as each course costs $10,000.

He also appealed to the people not to be scared as the disease early warning system was fully operational at NIH and monitoring the entire situation in the country.

According to him over 192 cases of CCHF have been reported from 1976 to date out of which 63 people have expired with 30 per cent mortality rate.