KARACHI, Nov 7: The number of new patients of viral haemorrhagic fever went beyond 100 again on Tuesday, indicating that there was a need for further strengthening of the ongoing dengue epidemic outbreak containment initiatives.
According to the data compiled by the Dengue Fever Cell of the Sindh health department, this was for the third time in a week that daily entry of dengue suspected cases remained more than 100 in city hospitals.
The DFC recorded new admission of 101 patients during the past 24 hours ending at 2 pm on Tuesday, while the number of patients tested positive for dengue fever increased to 1064 in the city.
However, the executive district officer (Health), Dr A D Sajnani, was of the view that fumigation or fogging in the city had been successful in recent days, otherwise, the number of new patients could have been on the much higher side. Practically the number of dengue cases has become static, he asserted.
According to Dr Shakeel A Malik of the DFC, a maximum of 28 fresh admissions were made at the Aga Khan University Hospital in the past 24 hours, followed by 12 new cases at Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, 11 each at Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre and Dr Ziauddin Hospital.
Giving an overall patient position, Dr Malik said as many as 111 new patients were admitted to different hospitals throughout Sindh, while 94 patients were discharged.
He said the number of dengue positive, out of 2888 patients so far admitted to Karachi hospitals since June last increased to 1064 on Tuesday.
He said that the death toll due to VHF or dengue fever remained unchanged as no new death was reported to the cell on Tuesday. So far deaths of 29 patients have been reported to the cell from city hospitals, while another four from interior Sindh hospitals.
However, health circles maintained that some of the deaths already known through different presentations had given to understand that at least three deaths which took place at a government hospital are yet to be documented.
The following is the position of patients in some of the reporting hospitals on Tuesday:
AKU-33 (28 new admissions), Liaquat National Hospital-24 (seven), Civil Hospital Karachi-11 (no new), JPMC-37 (11), Bismillah Taqi Hospital-20 (three), Hamid Hospital- four (no new case), National Institute of Child Health-20 (three new cases), Abbasi Shaheed Hospital-48 (12), Baqai Hospital- three (one),Patel general Hospital-four (three new cases), Darul Shifa Hospital-16 (eight), Chiniot Hopsital-16 (eight),Karachi Adventist Hospital-12 (two), Zainab Punjwani Hospital-three (one), Darul Sehat Hospital-three (two) and Kutiyana Hospital-11 (four).
EDO Health A D Sajnani said that reporting of new cases would surely decline significantly as soon as the change of weather takes place, which is also termed as non-conducive for transmission of dengue virus.
He, however, mentioned that the recent outbreak of dengue virus had definitely provided some opportunity to learn and avoid the managerial deficiencies in future.
Now the city government has decided to have its own centralised fleet of fogging generators fitted pick-ups so that fumigation drive can be undertaken periodically at least for three years, he added, saying orders for supply of pick-ups on priority basis have recently been placed to a manufacturing firm.
He conceded that the local government did not possess scientific hands behind the fumigation drive and that was why the results were not being achieved in line with the plans. We need training of our personnel, which cannot be denied, he said.
Replying to questions, he said the federal government had, so far, not provided any assistance, including that in kind of insecticides or experts to the city government.
The federal government had announced recently that it had already supplied medically treated bed-nets to Sindh, but to his dismay the nets are still awaited at the city government level, he added.
