RAWALPINDI: Three new dengue cases have been reported in the garrison city though all three patients are said to have caught the virus from outside the city.

Mohammad Bashir, 38, arrived from Saudi Arabia on June 21 and was brought to Holy Family Hospital (HFH) on Friday, June 22 with a fever and headache.

Dr Tariq Niazi, HFH deputy medical superintendent said the patient works in a private firm as a driver in Saudi Arabia and had been infected with the virus there. The patient’s condition is stable and he is recovering, the doctor said.

A couple has also been diagnosed with dengue at the District Headquarters Hospital (DHQ) Abdullah Qureshi and his wife came to the hospital from Rehmatabad near Chaklala Scheme III.

Doctors said they were caught the virus from outside the city on a recent visit to Karachi, from where they returned last week.

Three patients have also arrived at the Benazir Bhutto Hospital (BBH) presenting with dengue symptoms though they are yet to be diagnosed.

“Two or three suspected cases arrive each day but they turn out to be cases of common fever,” BBH Medical Superintendent Dr Asif Qadir Mir told Dawn.

He said the hospital had made special arrangements for dengue patients and had increased the number of beds in a separate ward. BBH has also adopted safety measures and has fumigated the hospital premises in order to avoid the spread of the virus, he added.

Doctor Mir said that suspected patients are checked into a separate room of the Out-Patient Department.

As many as 27 dengue patients have reported in the three government run hospitals from March to June this year of which 13 cases were reported at HFH, 12 at BBH and two at DHQ Hospital.

According to health experts, that dengue cases are emerging in the spring season and before monsoon is unusual.

“Usually, the dengue virus spreads after the monsoon rains, but this year, patients have started arriving earlier. The two bigger reasons for this are a poor campaign for detecting larvae and the use of substandard medicines to kill mosquitoes,” said an official from the health department.

He said Khawaja Salman Raffique, adviser to the Punjab chief minister had visited the garrison city and that the use of sub-standard medicines and the poor campaign against destroying mosquito breeding sites was brought to his notice.

“Though the advisor directed for some medicines to be used, the health department did not spray them along the Leh Nullah and other bigger drains to destroy dengue larvae,” he said.

The Rawalpindi and Chaklala cantonment boards routinely spray medicines in military housing schemes along Leh Nullah, Ammar Chowk and Westridge.

Published in Dawn, June 25th, 2016