ISLAMABAD, Dec 12: Federal Health Minister Mohammad Naseer Khan denied in the National Assembly on Monday reports that a woman who died of fever and excessive bleeding in a Rawalpindi hospital the previous day was a suspected Congo virus case.

However, he said that the government was taking all possible steps to control this disease.

Meanwhile, a senior lady doctor of the Rawalpindi General Hospital (RGH) who got a needle prick while performing surgery on the suspected case has been placed under observation.

“Such needle pricks do happen during surgery. Certainly she is being observed,” Dr Habib Ahmed Khan, medical superintendent of the RGH, told Dawn.

Dr Asma Tanveer Usmani, head of RGH’s Gynaecology Department, said she and some other doctors had been placed under observation since the death of Rukhsana Iqbal who was brought to the RGH with high fever and profusely bleeding after childbirth.

“At the moment everything is under control and there isn’t anything to panic about.”

A second case of suspected Congo virus, Ejaz Ahmed, was stated to be improving in the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims), Islamabad.

Ejaz, a 27-year-old butcher of Abbottabad, was rushed to Pims on Sunday after he developed the same symptoms — high fever and excessive bleeding — that had killed his cousin, also a butcher, on Saturday.

Though his condition has stabilized, Ejaz was still being kept in isolation and observation and the para medical staff and doctors who attended him were undergoing anti-viral treatment, pims sources said.

Samples of blood of Rukhsana Iqbal, 35, who died of symptoms similar to Crimean Congo Haemorrhagic Fever (CCHF) in Rawalpindi General Hospital on Sunday, and Ejaz Ahmed have been sent to the National Institute of Health to be forwarded to a laboratory in South Africa for diagnostic tests.

Rukhsana, whose husband works in an animal skins cleaning factory, had developed the symptoms after childbirth.

“It was a home delivery case. Apparently it was a mismanaged case handled out of the hospital. By the time the patient was brought to the hospital, she had lost a lot of blood,” said the RGH medical superintendent Dr Habib Ahmed Khan.

The hospital management had closed the operation theatre where the patient was kept for disinfection purpose. It is expected to be reopened on Tuesday as hospital protocol require all such places to be closed for 72 hours. Blood samples of the doctors who handled Rukhsana at the RGH were also taken for CP tests on Monday, a senior doctor of the hospital said. “Crimean Congo Haemorrhagic Fever (CCHF) is a remote possibility in case of Rukhsana. The patient had already lost massive blood at the place of delivery. She was pouring when brought to the RGH,” Prof Dr Asma Tanveer Usmani, who heads RGH’s Gynaecology Department, told Dawn. “After getting permission from patient’s family, we operated upon her and even removed her uterus, but bleeding didn’t stop despite all efforts,” she said. Dr Asma suggested that fresh frozen plasma and platelets should be made available at the RGH.