December 18, 2008	Thursday	Zilhaj 19, 1429

KARACHI, Dec 17: A young woman died of dengue fever at a city government hospital on Wednesday morning.

According to health officials, city hospitals have reported about 561 dengue-positive cases since June. Five of the patients have died.

Dr Syed Javed Ahmad of the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, where the 26-year-old married woman, a resident of Nazimabad, died at around 10am on Wednesday, told Dawn that the woman was found to be suffering from dengue fever at a private hospital and was brought to the ASH in a critical condition on Dec 15.

“At the hospital, we transfused two mega platelets [of blood] into the patient and provided her other medical treatment, but failed to save her life,” he said.

Replying to a question, he said the death rate of dengue patients at the ASH was minimal.

Of the 600 patients brought to the ASH with suspected dengue fever, only four had died there since June, he said.

The chief of the Sindh health department’s dengue surveillance cell, Dr Shakeel A. Mullick, said the woman patient lived in Paposhnagar and was brought to the ASH with profuse bleeding from different parts of the body and with a high fever.

He said the surveillance cell was still receiving reports about admissions of dengue patients to different hospitals and the total number of those suspected of suffering from haemorrhagic fever had reached 1,412 on Wednesday.

On average, six to 10 cases were being reported from different city hospitals daily, he said and made it clear that the trend of the disease was almost similar to the previous years’.