LAHORE: The viral disease chikungunya is preventable as it is identical to dengue, say public health experts.

“Chikungunya persists in countries where dengue is present,” said senior faculty members of public health institutions at a meeting held at the Civil Secretariat here on Wednesday to discuss a strategy for the prevention and treatment of chikungunya disease.

Services Institute of Medical Sciences’ Associate Professor of Infectious Diseases Dr Sobia Qazi said the vector of both chikungunya and dengue had been the same.

Vector of both chikungunya and dengue is same

“Chikungunya is also caused by the bite of an infected female aedes species mosquito – aedes aegypti or aedes albopictus,” she said.

Dr Sobia said that chikungunya primarily causes high-grade fever and severe joint pain. Other symptoms include muscle pain, headache, nausea, fatigue and skin rash.

“Joint pain is often debilitating and can vary in duration. There is no cure for the disease. Treatment is focused on relieving the symptoms,” she said.

Punjab’s chief bacteriologist Prof Dr Zarfashan Tahir and Prof Anjum Razzaq of the Institute of Public Health said that vector control strategies, especially fumigation and waste disposal measures, were required on immediate basis to prevent the outbreak of diseases like malaria, typhoid and dengue.

The prevention and control of the disease was essential to save the people from the morbidity.

Dr Tahir Yaqoob of the University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Lahore, said that no dengue case was ever reported in winters a decade ago.

“The emergence of the disease shows that the virus has successfully adapted itself to the filthy conditions prevailing in the country. The larvae of female mosquito aedes aegypti has also been found in dirty water in Karachi which has proved the theory wrong that the dengue vector breeds only in clean water,” he said.

Presiding over the meeting, Punjab Minister for Specialised Healthcare and Medical Education Khwaja Salman Rafique directed that a working group comprising technical experts should immediately be constituted to make recommendations for future strategy in this regard.

The minister directed that the working group should present its recommendations within a week.

He said that a letter should be sent to all principals of public sector medical colleges seeking an immediate reply regarding the directions issued to them a few months back to upgrade the pathological laboratories at their institutions.

Published in Dawn December 22nd, 2016