PESHAWAR, June 8: The World Health Organization (WHO) has expressed apprehensions about the outbreak of dengue fever in Haripur district and asked the government to take precautionary measures to control the spread of virus. It has also issued guidelines for doctors to help patients manage the fever.

“The mosquito breeding season will continue till September. There is a fear that dengue fever may resurface in Haripur that had killed scores of people, including two army cadets, in August 2003,” said a WHO official.

He said a WHO survey had confirmed presence of virus that caused the dengue fever in pools of stagnant water.

“Despite repeated requests, the government is yet to take steps for its prevention. There may still be cases, but owing to a lack of monitoring system in the area, they go unreported,” he added.

According to him, both vector and parasites known to cause the epidemic exist in the area. Citing international studies, he said a complete elimination of the disease took decades, and stressed efforts to control it.

Elaborating the strategy circulated among health officials in the province for its control, he said a virus transmitted to human beings by infected mosquitoes caused the fever. There are two varieties of the disease: dengue fever, which has a benign and self-limiting course, and dengue haemorrhagic fever, which is a severe form of the disease.

He said the second form could be fatal if not treated properly. Symptoms and signs of the fever, he said, were acute onset of high fever, severe frontal headache, retro-orbital pain, myalgia, arthralgias, nausea and vomiting and often a macula-popular rash. In addition, patients may notice a change in taste sensation, he added.

Symptoms were milder in children than adults, he said, adding that the condition was clinically indistinguishable from influenza, measles or rubella. This acute phase lasts up to one week followed by one or two week period of convalescence characterised by weakness, malaise and anorexia, he added.