October 19, 2008	Sunday	Shawwal 19, 1429

KARACHI, Oct 18: A special fund of Rs20 million allocated for preparedness and relief initiatives about the mosquito-borne dengue fever is unlikely to be utilised during the prevailing peak season of the disease, said sources in the provincial health department on Saturday.

It was in the middle of August that the health department had requested the Sindh government to allocate a special grant enabling the department to attain a level of preparedness where patients of dengue and haemorrhagic fever could be attended to efficiently, particularly during the peak dengue season.

According to a source, the chief minister has lately approved a proposal of the department for the provision of mega-platelet units for dengue-positive patients and shifting of dengue patients to some focal hospital and their effective handling there, in addition to some awareness-creation activities.

“However, in view of the reported lethargic officialdom and the pace of the relevant concept clearance, it can be assumed that the one-time grant can now be used for the provision of platelet units for dengue-positive patients or for the initiation of an awareness campaign and shifting of patients to focal hospitals across the province not before the advent of the new calendar year,” said the source.

Alerted about dengue fever following the media reported about fresh emergence of dengue fever cases and a couple of deaths, the health managers had decided to enhance the capacity of the government health-care facilities against the incidence of dengue fever on a war-footing basis in early August this year.

By that time the Sindh Health department had also been unable to make operational a three-million-rupee cell separator, the first procurement in the case of Sindh government hospitals, due to lack of funds.

The cell separator remained idle at the Sindh Government’s Qatar Hospital for about one year mainly for want of empty platelet bags and later it was shifted to the Civil Hospital, where it is now being used for the acquisition of different blood components on a limited scale under philanthropic initiatives.

According to the data gathered by the Sindh health department from various public and private hospitals, the rate of confirmed dengue fever cases reported during the last three months or so came to 33 per cent on Wednesday.

As many as 908 suspected cases of dengue fever or hemorrhagic fever were brought to the hospitals reporting to the Sindh government in the cases of dengue, out of which 302 were confirmed by laboratories as positive for dengue fever, while the number of patients succumbing to the fever was four during the months.

A senior official said the threats to people’s lives by dengue fever were likely to recede in the next couple of weeks.

Sindh Minister for Health Dr Sagheer Ahmad told Dawn that the number of confirmed cases during the last four months might be on a higher side, but that should be attributed to the government’s measures ensuring increased awareness among the people and the physicians and improved laboratory testing facilities in the government-run health institutions, which were not frequently available in previous years.

Replying to a question, he said that in addition to the existing three cell separators at Karachi, Larkana and Nawabshah, the government had decided to install one cell separator each at hospitals in Karachi and the interior of the province.