RAWALPINDI: More than 50 dengue patients arrived in three government-run hospitals in Rawalpindi from Dhoke Munshi located near Nur Khan Airbase.

Divisional Commissioner Saqib Zafar, however, ordered all government departments to carry out an anti-dengue campaign in the area on Sunday (today).

Taking notice of the issue, the commissioner spent the whole day working out a plan to stop the spread of the virus to other areas and held two meetings in his office.

The first meeting was held with the district administration and the second was attended by representatives of all federal and provincial departments.

Commissioner Saqib Zafar orders an anti-dengue campaign in Dhoke Munshi today

The commissioner expressed dissatisfaction over the performance of the departments carrying out anti-dengue campaign for the last several months.

In September last year, more than 50 patients had reported to the government-run hospitals but this year a similar number of patients arrived a month earlier from a specific area.

The commissioner directed the department concerned to write a letter to the secretaries of the environment, Auqaf, education, agriculture and other departments to take action against those officials who failed to participate in the anti-dengue drives.

On the other hand, the officials blamed heavy rains and non-cooperation of the private housing schemes and the cantonment boards for the dengue cases.

However, the commissioner refused to buy their stance and said proper work needed to be done in all the union councils.

He said had work been done properly, such a high number of cases would not have been reported from a specific area.

Dengue experts from Lahore also refused to accept surveillance reports submitted by the government departments and termed them fabricated.

According to the experts, some departments had carried out 100 surveillance exercises in some areas but found no dengue larvae.

They suggested to the commissioner to carry out a coordinated exercise aimed at eliminating the dengue larvae.

The commissioner asked the deputy commissioner to review work of the administration and allied departments on a daily basis so the dengue virus could be checked from spreading further.

Officials from the health department passed the buck on to the Islamabad administration saying the latter failed to accommodate the patients in the capital territory hospitals and referred them to the Holy Family Hospital where 59 dengue patients from Islamabad had been accommodated.

The meeting was informed that there were 109 dengue patients in the three government-run hospitals, including 50 from the Rawalpindi city and 59 from Islamabad.

As many as 79 dengue patients were admitted to Holy Family Hospital (HFH), 27 to Benazir Bhutto Hospital (BBH) and 15 to District Headquarters (DHQ) Hospital.

The commissioner was annoyed over the allocation of beds for dengue patients in the corridors of the DHQ hospital. He asked the hospital administration to allocate a ward for the dengue patients.

He also asked the hospitals to relieve those patients who had received treatment for the dengue fever.

He said the provincial government had already issued standard operating procedures for handling dengue patients and it should be implemented.

He said he would visit Dhoke Munshi on Sunday along with the deputy commissioner and other department heads to inspect the anti-dengue drive.

Published in Dawn, August 18th, 2019