KARACHI: The city’s administration has planned a campaign to contain the alarming rise in the incidence of Naegleria fowleri, commonly known as the ‘brain-eating’ amoeba, and dengue haemorrhagic fever keeping in view the ongoing monsoon season in the city which officials believe could worsen the situation and pose a greater danger to more people if measures are not taken in time, officials said on Friday.

“We are aware of the situation, which is surely alarming, and we have planned certain effective measures to counter it in the coming days,” said Karachi commissioner Shoaib Ahmed Siddiqui after presiding over a meeting with his deputies in the city’s six districts and other senior officials overseeing the city’s healthcare matters.

The officials in the meeting said inspectors from the Sindh health department had been given powers to visit anywhere they deemed it necessary to control dengue and naegleria and could take measures to control the deadly diseases.

They discussed the places which contributed to the increase in the intensity of the two diseases, particularly tyre repair shops, swimming pools, graveyards and nurseries, and decisions were taken to devise a strategy to monitor and inspect such places that played host to dengue and naegleria.

The deputy commissioners of the six districts had been asked to supervise the entire exercise and lead the staff involved in the inspection of swimming pools and tyre shops. Besides, they will have to hold meetings every fortnight to devise a strategy for the coming fortnight.

All the assistant commissioners will accompany the inspectors to check industries, tyre shops and swimming pools.

The fact that the water supplied to almost half of the city was either deficient in or had no chlorine at all was also discussed and the performance of the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board responsible for proper chlorination of water supplied to the city was not appreciated for such poor chlorination.

The meeting participants decided to seal those swimming pools and water parks which did not chlorinate water properly, a decision different city authorities had also taken in the past, but was never implemented in letter and spirit.

At present there is no authority which oversees and devises a strategy to combat dengue. The ambitious Rs42 million ‘emergency action plan’ titled ‘dengue prevention and control programme, Sindh,’ approved by the provincial government in April aimed at devising action to mitigate the lethality the viral disease manifested last year failed to kick off and the funds lapsed because of red tape by the finance department.

The programme which converted the dengue surveillance cell into dengue prevention and control programme was conceived after the viral disease had killed 32 people last year while more than 6,000 cases were confirmed in the province of which over 5,000 belonged to Karachi alone.

Sources said that the plan had been approved by the Sindh government on a summary of the health department initially for four months that could have been extended for three more years. However, the money was never released to the authorities concerned making the whole plan dormant. The funds eventually lapsed with the turn of the financial year.

Six people have already died of dengue this year and hundreds have been affected.

Apart from Karachi, the last year was also the worst for Sindh’s second largest city of Hyderabad with more than 600 cases, highest since the dengue’s incidence manifested in the province in 2005. Mirpurkhas district was a distant third with 32 dengue cases.

Some 32 people, including 12 female victims with the youngest victim — a three-year-old girl from North Karachi — and the oldest victim — a 95-year-old man from Larkana — died of dengue. The deaths were the second highest toll recorded in a year after 2006 when 49 people had died.

The aggregate age of the 32 victims died last year was 34.5.

On the other hand, naegleria has claimed six victims, including a nine-month-old girl as its youngest victim, this year.

Five out of six naegleria-related deaths belonged to Karachi while a young man who died early this month in a Karachi private hospital originally came from Hyderabad.

Health officials said that naegleria could be countered only through proper chlorination or boiling of water.

Last year, the disease claimed three lives — a 14-year-old boy from Korangi, a 20-year-old man from New Karachi’s Godhra Colony and a 40-year-old man from Lines Area.

The deadly disease surfaced in the city with extreme lethality in 2012 when it claimed 10 lives.

The ages of the naegleria victims so far ranged from nine months to 49 years.

The water analysis of the city has showed that more than 40 per cent of the water in the metropolis is supplied with much less than the required chlorine levels.

Swimming in public pools with improper arrangement for chlorination is believed to be one of the main causes of contracting the dreaded amoeba infection.

These germs travel through the nasal cavity and only affect the brain.

Published in Dawn, August 2nd, 2014