RAWALPINDI: Six more dengue patients have arrived in the Holy Family Hospital (HFH), forcing the local administration to speed up the anti-dengue campaign in the city.

District Coordination Officer (DCO) Talat Mehmood Gondal cancelled Eidul Azha holidays of officers of the district administration and the health department concerned.

According to instructions issued by the Punjab government, all officers of the local administration will perform duties from September 11 to 14.

The six patients were admitted to the HFH on Friday and their serology tests on Saturday confirmed that they were dengue cases. The results of four other patients are awaited while samples of nine suspected patients are yet to be sent to the laboratory.

As per details collected from Holy Family Hospital, the BBH and the District Headquarters (DHQ) Hospital, 792 suspected dengue patients were brought to these hospitals since March, out of whom 104 were confirmed dengue cases.

There were also reports about two dengue-related deaths but the health department and the hospitals said the patients died of multiple organ failure.

Executive District Officer (EDO) Health Dr Arshad Ali Sabir told Dawn that there was no dengue-related death reported from the three hospitals. However, he said the number of patients had been increasing due to the above-normal rains during the monsoon.

He said after the arrival of a patient in a hospital, a team visited the area where he lived to carry out fogging there.

Meanwhile, Local Government and Community Development Director Mian Najeeb Aslam on Saturday suspended Secretary Union Council No 14 Ghulam Murtaza and Supervisor Mohammad Abdullah for filing a false report about the anti-dengue campaign in their area.

Published in Dawn, September 11th, 2016