PESHAWAR: Dengue hemorrhagic fever continues to send people to the hospitals almost from the same villages that were hit by the mosquitoes-borne disease in 2017.

Khyber Teaching Hospital, which provided diagnostic and treatment services to most of 100,000 patients affected by the disease two years ago, has received about 50 patients this year. It has established 20-bed dengue ward where 15 patients including five females, mostly belonging to Sarband, Badbher and Kagawal, have been admitted.

These villages recorded most of the dengue cases in the last epidemic where initially patients checked into hospitals in ones and twos but within days Khyber Teaching Hospital, Lady Reading Hospital and Hayatabad Medical Complex were overwhelmed by patients. The health facilities ran out of beds.

Physician urges people to adopt preventive measures

“The ailment is growing and number of patients can swell abruptly,” a physician at KTH said. He added that they received about 300 suspected people and most of them were sent home after first aid.

“The disease has already killed about 70 people, mostly in provincial capital, during the previous epidemic and the only option to prevent its re-emergence lies in awareness as the causative agents for the sickness prevails abundantly,” said the physician. He added no efforts were made to scale up public awareness.

“We are here to treat the patients coming from anywhere but some diseases are totally avoidable if other agencies responsible for cleanliness and awareness among the people do their work,” he said.

Two years ago on July 14, panic gripped the villages due to a full-blown outbreak of dengue fever, mostly due to accumulation of water in tyres on rooftop of workshops, in air coolers and uncovered water pots.

This year, the first case of dengue was recorded on July 8 at KTH. The health facility hospitalised 5,000 patients and screened 30,000 in the last epidemic.

Experts said that rain could aggravate the situation if the departments concerned failed to end stagnant water pools, breeding ground for mosquitoes. The people in the endemic localities should use impregnated bed nets to stay safe from mosquitoes bites and use full sleeve shirt, especially in the evening time, they sad.

LRH has admitted one patient. HMC has also received 12 patients and most of them are in stable conditions now. Last week, a local nazim rushed to HMC and showed anger over low-paced treatment of his dengue-affected electorates.

“The nazim, elected by the people, has the powers to prevent the disease from further spread because he enjoys influence,” said a physician.

Another physician said that formerly, when the disease was in full swing, the health department and World Health Organisation had urged the local government representatives to run campaign against it and prevail upon their voters to adopt protective measures but they didn’t cooperate and the ailment spread to alarming level.

He said that patients load was too much and they had to allocate beds from other wards for dengue patients. “We had no option, because patients were coming in droves. Now, we have the option to clean the environment and safeguard people,” he said.

Published in Dawn, August 7th, 2019