PESHAWAR: Two more persons died of dengue fever here on Tuesday as suspected patients continued to visit the hospitals with symptoms of the vector-borne ailment, said doctors.

So far 12 persons have died of the ailment caused by bites of infected mosquitoes since the outbreak of the disease in early July.

Lal Bacha, 60, a resident of Tehkal Payan and Hafizullah, 25, of Palosai village in Peshawar died at Khyber Teaching Hospital.

However, authorities are yet to confirm the death of the former and are investigating whether he died of dengue fever or Congo fever.

“He was admitted last night to the hospital due to which we are investigating if he died of Congo or dengue fever because the symptoms occur in one week in the latter while the former can kill the patient within days,” a doctor told Dawn.

239 more test positive at different hospitals

A report released by Dengue Response Unit said that 1,801 suspected patients were reported at the public sector hospitals on Tuesday of whom 1,794 underwent investigations and 239 turned out to be positive.

The report said that 153 hospitalisation cases were recorded as the province witnessed 3,619 admissions due to dengue fever since its outbreak. It said that 3,153 persons were so far discharged from hospitals after recovery. Most the patients visit Khyber Teaching Hospital followed by Lady Reading Hospital, which has received 287 patients, while Hayatabad medical Complex has received 150 patients.

Mardan Medical Complex has so far received 148 patients where, according to sources, the health secretary had taken exception to the cleanliness situation during a visit a couple of days ago. The district headquarters hospital in Batkhela has so far received 33 patients with two positive cases.

Batkhela has a history of dengue virus since 2014 when it had registered 468 patients. Doctors say they received 398 patients in 2015 and 272 in 2016.

In Mansehra, King Abdullah Teaching Hospital received 22 patients during the past one week including 20 positive for dengue fever. Five are still undergoing treatment in Mansehra. Kuwait Teaching Hospital Peshawar has admitted 13 confirmed patients so far.

Eight patients are being treated at district headquarters hospital in Daggar, Buner district which registered a total of 48 patients. Nowshera has so far recorded three cases.

A resident of Charsadda, the second case from the district, was admitted to LRH on Tuesday.

Authorities are focusing on prevention of the ailment as they have found larva of mosquitoes in the endemic area of Tehkal. Entomologists told Dawn that they had found that roofs in Tehkal were full of old tyres, which provided breeding sites to mosquitoes. There were 18 potential breeding sites for mosquitoes, which need to be taken care of, they said.

They said that a health team visited a house in Pishtakhara village, another infected locality, where it found larva on the rooftop. Five cases had been detected in the same house.

“Health department is scaling up public awareness regarding causes of the disease by asking people to wear socks because 75 per cent of mosquito bites are on feet,” they said. They said that people should use bed nets and sprinkle detergents on stagnant water pools or water pots to eliminate larva.

Published in Dawn, August 30th, 2017