LAHORE, Sept 24: The Punjab government has released Rs20 million to each teaching hospital to provide special treatment to dengue patients.

Four AC units have been installed in the wards set up for dengue patients at the Lahore General Hospital.

This was stated by Secretary (Agriculture) Arif Nadeem during a media briefing regarding dengue fever here on Saturday.

Special Secretary Health (Punjab) Dawood Muhammad Khan Bareach, Director General Health Punjab Dr Aslam Chaudhry, KEMU’s professor of medicine Dr Moaz Ahmad and other officers were also present.

He said 150 more fogging machines were being imported and 200 foggers were already being utilised in the campaign. He said action had been taken against 70 medical stores for selling medicines at higher prices and 41 laboratories for receiving more than Rs90 for blood test.

He said 9,402 dengue fever patients had been discharged and 379 new patients were reported in the province during the last 24 hours, of which 314 belong to Lahore. He said the total number of dengue patients reported during the current year in Punjab was 9,781, of which 8,769 related to Lahore.

At present, he said, as many as 1,462 patients were under treatment in various government and private hospitals.

He said free treatment facilities were being provided to the dengue patients in the government hospitals. He said 11 deaths occurred due to dengue fever during the last 24 hours.

Earlier, the special secretary (health) told reporters that the government had launched a vigorous campaign for creating awareness about the diagnosis and treatment of dengue patients. As a result, he said, the rush of dengue patients had started decreasing in outdoor departments of teaching hospitals. He further told reporters that the federal government had issued an NOC for importing Dextron-40 medicine from India and the Punjab Health Department had also placed an order of importing

drops costing Rs2 million and the company concerned would provide these drops within four days.

Mr Bareach further said one each field hospital consisting of 16 beds was also being provided to the teaching hospitals of Lahore so that the patients should not face any problem. He said the walk-in interviews were in progress for recruiting 1,000 nurses whereas 624 nurses, already recruited through this process, had been deputed in various hospitals.

He said the medical experts of Sri Lanka had given Standard Operating Procedure (SOPs) for treatment of dengue-hit children, which had been sent to the administration of all teaching hospitals. He said the officials of the health department and local medical experts had got an opportunity to learn from the long experience of Sri Lankan experts.