LAHORE: The Dengue Expert Advisory Group (DEAG) has exposed the “criminal negligence” on the part of the district and health authorities following the recent dengue outbreak in Rawalpindi city.

It has unveiled disturbing facts and levelled accusations regarding false/fictitious reporting about the actual number of dengue cases in the city and the supply of medicines about to expire for the treatment of the patients.

The DEAG is the only high-level credible body of Punjab which was formed after dengue gripped the province nine years ago.

“It was noted with huge amount of concern that daily hundreds of suspected dengue patients are being reported to the healthcare facilities of Rawalpindi and a considerable number of these are tested positive for dengue infection thereby falling in the category of confirmed dengue cases,” reads the report.

It alleged that the health authorities were showing meagre number of patients while concealing facts regarding enormous disease burden in the city. It raised another serious issue that very few number of lifesaving drug Dextran-40 fluid is left in the stock. The drug is used in case of Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever (DHF), the most advanced and dangerous stage of the dengue fever.

Dengue experts feared that the patients in an advanced stage of the disease hardly survive if not diagnosed and treated timely.

“The alternative Hetastarch 6% is also not readily available in hospitals’ pharmacies and in the market to save lives of the patients,” the report said.

Many other shocking facts including procurement of irrelevant drug that was not recommended for the DHF patients and presentation of small percentage of actual cases had been reported by the DEAG in its confidential report submitted to the Punjab chief minister.

The most worrying part of this report was the fact that 40% of the DHF patients were admitted to the hospitals of the Rawalpindi with a potential risk to their lives.

“Some of the hospitals have procured Hetastarch 3% solution for patients with DHF which is not recommended to be used in the treatment of dengue shock syndrome,” it said.

“A large number of the patients in the form of asymptomatic or mild infection are present in the community and they may contribute to the disease burden enormously in coming days,” the DEAG reported. All of the visited hospitals complained that there was shortage of human resource in the form of doctors, nurses and paramedical staff.

“In some hospitals, more than 50 percent of the posts were vacant for long,” the report pointed out.

About the diagnostic facilities, the DEAG reported that the facility of Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) and serotyping was not available to any government hospital of Rawalpindi. The PCR helps detect the presence of hepatitis C virus in the body and a person’s potential to transmit HCV to others.

Published in Dawn, September 12th, 2019