KARACHI, Aug 8: No new case of Congo virus, other than that of a woman — suspected to be a Congo patient — has been found in Arab Mohalla, Baldia Town, said EDO Health Dr Khalid Shaikh on Tuesday.
Following reports received on Sunday that a woman, Sumaira, was suffering from high fever and blood vomiting, a team of doctors of the city government was sent to Baldia Town to ascertain whether some more area people were affected by Congo virus or not.
However, after conducting investigations, it is now clear that none of the neighbours or other family members of Sumaira were suffering from symptoms similar to Sumaira’s, said Dr Shaikh.
He said that there was no report about haemorrhagic fever from any other part of the city till Tuesday evening.
In the meantime, doctors at the Civil Hospital Karachi told Dawn that Sumaira, 22, a married woman and mother of a two-month-old child, who was brought to the hospital with a history of high grade fever and blood vomiting on last Saturday evening, was improving. She is very fine, said a senior doctor, adding that her clinical presentations did not reveal that she was affected by Congo virus.
In view of the response to treatment at the isolation ward and clinical developments, a senior doctor also doubted the report pertaining to Sumaira’s blood test prepared by a private university hospital showing her as positive for Congo virus, a senior doctor at CHK said that hospital authorities were considering sending the report in question back to the hospital concerned for a rechecking or conducting second laboratory test from the original sample it had.
