KARACHI: Health deptt shies away from details on dengue
By Mukhtar Alam
KARACHI, Oct 21: In a situation when Karachiites appear more concerned over the spread of dengue fever, the provincial health department on Saturday stopped providing related details to media, without assigning any reason.
However, data collected by Dawn till Saturday afternoon indicated that at the Aga Khan University Hospital and Liaquat National Hospital as many as 81 persons were under treatment as in-house patients, which included about 20 newly admitted patients.
At Jinnah Postgraduate medical Centre, the number of in-house patients stood at 20, including seven fresh arrivals.
A source privy to the office of the focal person for Dengue Fever Cell of the Sindh government said that information about the patients was being received from hospitals as usual but it was not leaked to media as the big wigs of the health department did not want to continue with the data releasing practice enforced about a week back.
Despite claims of sanitation campaigns and other measures by city and provincial governments, the menace of dengue fever is very much there and as such the day to day release of consolidated figures was perhaps exposing the governments failures both at local and provincial levels, added the source, saying that all the top officials of the provincial health department had been stopped from issuing statement or making dengue fever figures public. Despite efforts neither the focal person on dengue fever nor the senior officers of the health department agreed to give any reason on the latest move by the government, particularly in a situation when the number of suspected cases of viral haemorrhagic fever continues to increase.
Doctors in general expressed the view that fever problem continued unabated and in some cases it was complicated as well. At one private hospital, patients were received with high grade fever, bleeding from nose, gums and mouth on Saturday.After a late night check, it was gathered that about 65 fresh cases of suspected VHF or dengue were brought to hospitals.
Assistant Medical Director of LNH, Dr Shaukat Rajput, said that he had requested the focal person on dengue fever, Dr Abdul Majid, to arrange for fumigation against mosquitoes at the hospital, but any action was still awaited
Talking to Dawn, EDO Health Dr A.D. Sajnani said he would not be able to give details as he had not received any information from the Sindh health department at his office so far. He said that he had been trying to contact Dr Abdul Majid and Dr Shakeel Malik for the purpose, but to no avail.
On the issue of fever cases, he said that cases were being reported to hospitals and he would like to say that things had started improving but still not fully under control. “It is a fact that due to campaigns by the city and provincial governments now people have learnt to bring the mosquito afflicted disease patients to hospitals in time, which helped correct diagnosis and recovery of patients,” he added.
In the meantime, a seminar on dengue was held at Dr Ziauddin Hopsital, North Nazimabad campus.
Giving a presentation of his study done with 116 dengue fever patients brought to Dr Ziauddin Hospital for treatment, Dr Irfan Ahmad Khan said that a majority of dengue fever patients admitted in hospitals had already been given antibiotics and anti-malarials earlier, which made matters complicated as they served to reduce platelet counts further thereby making the matters worse.
Dr Irfan pointed out that his patients gave a common history of fever, nausea, vomiting, body ache and abdominal pain with few incidences of cough, diarrhoea and severe headache while facial flushing, erythema and lymphadenopathy was also reported in majority of cases.
He also emphasised that the dengue afflicting mosquito bred in clean water and therefore could transmit to multiple family members who might present with a mild to severe form of disease based on variety of factors including age and presence of comorbids.
Dr Irfan also stressed on the need of a formation of regional authority for accumulation of data and analysis because all the guidelines issued by the World Health Organisation were based on studies performed in other countries of South East Asia.
Commenting on his presentation, Dr Naseem Salahuddin, In-charge Infection Control Disease Department of Liaquat National Hospital and president of Infection Control Society of Pakistan, said that the data collected at the Liaquat National Hospital too, although not completely analyzed yet, came to the same facts and figures. She appreciated the efforts put in by private hospitals in spearheading this campaign against this epidemic.
Dr Naseem highlighted the need of strengthening surveillance, preparing a contingency plan, community awareness and vector control. She expressed her dissatisfaction over the role being played by the government health authorities in realizing the threat. She stressed on the role of media in helping the cause by printing and showing the facts with emphasis on prevention and not to create panic in community by stating myths and misconceptions.
Dr Faisal Mehmood of the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation said that the blood vessels started leaking with dengue hemorrhagic fever and could cause bleeding from nose, mouth and gums, in addition bruising can be a sign of bleeding inside the body.
The speakers stressed to take preventive measures such as mosquito netting, spraying insecticides, using mosquito repellents, discontinuing usage of open flowerpots and earthenware water containers, covering water storage tanks, discarding accumulated water from the tray in the base of refrigerators and air conditioners.
KARACHI, Oct 21: In a situation when Karachiites appear more concerned over the spread of dengue fever, the provincial health department on Saturday stopped providing related details to media, without assigning any reason.
