KARACHI, Oct 31: As the mosquito menace persisted unabated, deaths of two dengue patients were reported amid flocking of patients with febrile illness to city hospitals on Tuesday.
The Dengue Fever Cell of the Sindh Health department recorded an all time high, 99, fresh-admissions of patients afflicted with mosquito-borne diseases at 12 government and private hospitals during the past 24 hours, ending at 2pm on Tuesday.
The reports about fresh admissions and increase in death toll up to 27 in the city are sure to upset the health officials who had been maintaining that the number of cases would subside significantly by the end of October and things would settle normal in November, said a couple of doctors at government and private hospitals.
The situation shows that still the authorities in the city government and cantonments boards need to do a lot in terms of fogging and sanitation in the city. Unless we eliminate the vector, the Aedes Aegypti mosquito, the dengue menace will continue to haunt the citizens of Karachi, said a senior doctor.
As updated by the DFC, since June as many as 30 VHF suspected or dengue fever patients, including three reported from hospitals outside Karachi, have died. A total of 1960 patients have been admitted for treatment of VHF or dengue fever in the province, out of which 627 were detected positive for dengue fever. The percentage of dengue positive cases on Tuesday remained as 31.98, while a good number of in-house patients were yet to be tested for dengue fever.
The focal person for the DFC, Dr Abdul Majid, said that 233 patients were still admitted to 15 city hospitals which had been giving details to him on a regular basis. As many as 61 patients were discharged after treatment in the past 24 hours, Dr Majid added.
The patients whose deaths were reported to the DFC on Tuesday were identified as Mansoor Bhatti, 25, a resident of Lyari, and Ghulam Mustafa, 16, a resident of Gulshan-i-Iqbal. Both the patients were confirmed dengue cases and had been under treatment at the Liaquat National Hospital.
Giving details of the patients, the assistant medical director of the LNH, Dr Shaukat Ali Rajput, said that they died on Oct 28. They were brought to hospital in a severe condition and were kept in the ICU, where they remained for two to three days, he said.
Talking about the admissions of other dengue patients at his hospital, Dr Rajput said that they had been brought from different parts of the city, mostly congested and marked with poor sanitation condition.
Replying to a question, he said that he understood that the dengue status was in its middle phase and it had yet to attain a peak. It is hoped that the dengue cases will start declining in the mid of November when the lower temperature will not prove conducive to the breeding of the Aedes Aegypti mosquito, which carried the dengue virus, he added.
The position of in-house patients at different hospitals in the city on Tuesday was LNH 33 (16 new cases), Aga Khan University Hopsital 43 (21 new), Dr Ziauddin Hospital 22(11), Jinnah Postgraduate Hopsital 32 (9), Civil Hopsital Karachi 13(8), National Institute of Child Health 15 (11), Baqai Hopsital 14 (3), Abbasi Shaheed Hopsital 4 (2), Zainul Abedin hospital-2 (0), Patel General Hospital- 8 (2),Darul Shafa-18 (12), Chiniot General Hospital 17(2), Bismillah Taqi Hospital 10 (2), Hamid Hospital 1 and MidCity Hospital 1.
Giving information about the dengue affected patients, an AKUH press release says that at present 43 patients are hospitalized with suspected viral haemorrhagic fever; most of them were admitted during the last two weeks.
This reflects a sudden increase in the number of such cases and is a cause of concern, adds the press release, saying that so far a total of 403 patients with ages ranging between 6 to 82 years were admitted at the AKUH between June 14 and Oct 31, with viral haemorrhagic fever.
As many as nine patients died due to the severity of the disease, while 350 recovered and were discharged. The patients suffered from symptoms ranging from bleeding, diarrhoea, vomiting to abdominal pain, the AKUH further said.
In the meantime, a caller from Bahadur Yar Jang Society on Tuesday night claimed that his residential area as well as adjoining societies like Al-Hamra and Overseas, situated between the Tipu Sultan and Amir Khusro roads, were awaiting fumigation or anti-mosquito spray.
The authorities say that fumigation was being carried out religiously in all parts of the city, but he personally inquired about the much emphasised fumigation from other residents but failed to confirm the exercise so far, the caller noted and urged the relevant town nazim and other staff to ensure the spray at the earliest.
