LAHORE, Sept 2: The health and district government officials have misled the senior Punjab functionaries about the true picture of dengue by concealing facts as the actual number of patients in Lahore is hundred times more compared to those officially reported so far, it is learnt.

The situation is under control in other districts of the province.

According to the health department reports the total number of dengue patients in the city has exceeded 1,000.

A source told Dawn that some 2,000 registered family physicians, a backbone of the healthcare system, and more than 100 private hospitals in the provincial capital had totally been ignored by the health authorities as only few major private health facilities were made part of the network of reporting mechanism to get data about dengue patients.

Resultantly, the strategy devised by the Punjab health department to control dengue on the basis of a small number of patients declared positive so far has deprived a large number of the patients of proper treatment.

“Keeping in view the growing number of dengue fever patients reporting to the family physicians in the city these days, we can declare it in clear terms an epidemic of the viral infection,” Pakistan Academy of Family Physicians (PAFP) President Dr Tariq Mahmood Mian told Dawn on Friday.

He said there’s a wide network of family physicians providing treatment to the patients at their doorsteps.

“Some 3,000 local doctors are catering for healthcare needs of nearly 70 per cent population of the city. There are another 2,000 registered family physicians,” he said.

Similarly, Dr Tariq said, around 25 per cent other population visited private hospitals while the rest went to the tertiary-care health institutions for treatment.

Giving glooming picture of the dengue spread in the provincial capital, he said: “In the current peak season of the dengue fever every family physician attends at least 30 to 40 patients daily with symptoms of dengue virus. Of them 10 per cent are tested positive for the virus in the clinical reports being carried out locally while the others either prefer to stay at homes for treatment or visit the government hospitals.

“Five per cent of the patients are those having low platelet counts.”

Dr Tariq said Samanabad, Walton and some areas of northern city were most vulnerable to the dengue where the virus has hit a big population besides some posh localities of the city like Model Town, Garden Town, Gulberg, Cantonment etc.

He termed these high-risk areas for the virus on the basis of the information collected by the PAFP from at least 80 registered family physicians located in Samanabad, 70 in Walton and around 80 in northern areas of the provincial capital.

He regretted that the Punjab health department or district government had not contacted the PAFP to get data or to launch effective programme to control the disease.

“The family physicians know the true picture of dengue spread as they are in close contact with the affected patients who either visit the local clinics twice or at least once a day for treatment,” Dr Tariq said.

Dr Mazhar Iqbal Chaudhry, convener of a health committee on chamber of commerce and industry and private hospitals, criticised the health department and other authorities concerned battling dengue for totally ignoring the private-sector hospitals -- a major stakeholder in the healthcare system.

He said more than 100 private hospitals were serving a large population of the city for healthcare. According to a rough estimate, he said, around 15 to 20 patients visited the private hospitals daily with dengue symptoms and several of them were shifted with low platelet counts and bleeding.

Dr Chaudhry said residents of some posh localities particularly Model Town were most vulnerable to the dengue fever this year. He said the employees like watchmen, drivers, security guards, gatekeepers etc., of every second house in Model Town had been diagnosed with dengue virus owing to outdoor exposure.

He expressed displeasure over the flawed plan of controlling dengue virus by the health department, saying the officials neither contacted the private hospitals nor did they consider them to address this public issue which is worsening by the day.

Dr Mazhar said the health department should review the reporting system to compile the data about affected dengue patients by involving the private hospitals and other local doctors.

Last year, he said, the health department had consulted the private health facilities though too late but this year no such exercise was witnessed despite the fact that the number of dengue patients was increasing beyond expectation.

He said several dengue patients in dire need of blood donors were reporting to the private hospitals daily. Shortage of platelet kits in the market also added to the problems of the infected patients, he said.

Punjab Health Director-General Chaudhry Muhammad Aslam said the health department could not control dengue fever or any such viral infection without involving the stakeholders concerned.

He said it was also responsibility of the private hospitals and registered private health professionals in all the districts to inform the executive district officers (health) about the confirmed dengue patients.

“They can provide information on the cell phones of the officials concerned through text messages, emails or on landline official phone numbers.”

The department, he said, had devised reporting mechanism to target the infected dengue patients, their family members, neighbours and their localities for fumigation and spray so as to stop further spread of the virus.

For this purpose, he said, the department was collecting complete particulars of the patients including his/her name, address, cell phone or landline phone numbers besides history of the disease.

Dr Aslam said the EDOs concerned should also bring in the reporting net all the registered and unregistered family physicians to notify the confirmed dengue patients officially.

He said he would talk to the Lahore EDO to hold meetings with the office-bearers of the Private Hospital Association, the PAFP and representatives of other private practitioners.

DENGUE PATIENTS: A UK government official was suspected as a dengue patient at a private health facility in the city on Friday.

Some 143 more people have been diagnosed as dengue patients all over the province from the first day of Eid to Friday.

A source said educationist Dr Philip Henderson visited a private health facility on Jail Road with dengue fever symptoms. He has been residing in Gulberg, one of the posh areas declared vulnerable to dengue infection.

The doctor at the health facility suspected him as dengue patient on the basis of initial clinical investigations with 78,000 platelet counts only.