KARACHI, Dec 1: Thirty-six more people afflicted by mosquito borne diseases were rushed to seven public and private hospitals in the city during the past 24 hours, with complaints rash and fever.
According to data released by the Dengue Fever Cell (DFC) of the Sindh Health Department, there was an increase by 33 in the number of new patients, which defied all predictions and claims of experts and health official that the number of cases would subside significantly by the end of October and things would settle down in November.
An analysis shows that a total of 1,960 patients were admitted till October 31 in the province and the figure rose to 4,399 in the 30 days of November. The increase of about 125 per cent in the number of patients during November demanded that the issue be given due importance.
Since June as many as 4275 VHF suspected or dengue fever patients were admitted to hospitals in Karachi, out of which 1407 were detected positive for Dengue positive.
Dr Tajammul Baig of DFC said a maximum of nine new patients were brought to Dr Ziauddin Hospital during the last 24 hours, ending at 2pm Friday.
He said at present there were no patients at the National Institute of Child Health where 151 patients were registered as in-house patients during the last five months.
The patient position in different hospitals of city on Friday remained as follows:
Meanwhile, an AKU Hospital press release said 20 patients are currently hospitalised with suspected viral haemorrhagic fever, which obviously reflected the decrease in the number of cases within the last two weeks.
At AKUH a total of 760 patients have been admitted between June 14 and December 1, with viral haemorrhagic fever. Of these, 15 expired due to severity of the disease, while 725 recovered and were discharged.
The press release said that 303 patients were diagnosed to have dengue fever, three suffered from Crimean-Congo fever and in the other cases, the special serological tests were either negative or results were pending.
