PESHAWAR: Health department has escalated anti-dengue campaign after detection of five cases including four in the same house in Gul Bahar locality of Peshawar.

The reported cases include four Afghan children while 37 more people have been screened in the same area, according to a press release. The district administration has been carrying out insecticidal spray in the affected area to safeguard people from the vector-born ailment.

People have been warned against storage of water in uncovered pots, which is the main source of production of mosquitoes, the carrier of the virus.

Meanwhile, a report prepared by Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response System of health department said that so far a total of 66 positive cases were reported in the province.

Official says KP is prone to virus as it infects people every year

Peshawar, the epicentre of the virus, has reported 13 cases, Swabi and Dir Lower 10 each, Haripur and Bannu seven cases each, Bajaur six, Charsadda and Abbottabad three each, Swat two and one case has been recorded from Chitral Lower, Kohat, Buner, Dir Upper and Nowshera. No death has been reported from dengue fever this year so far.

The report said that two clusters of the virus were identified in Gul Bahar area of Peshawar and Tendo Dag area of Dir Lower where special activities were under way to contain spread of the ailment to people.

It said that 20 patients were hospitalised due to the infection so far and 15 of them recovered who were sent home after complete recovery while five were still being treated at hospitals. There were still 15 active cases in the province while 51 patients recovered, it added.

The director of public health, Dr Irshad Roghani, told Dawn that the province was prone to dengue virus as the disease caused infection to people every year. However, owing to efforts of health workers and line departments, the situation with regard to the sickness had shown improvement, he added.

“We recorded 70 mortalities due to dengue and 25,000 infections in 2017. Hospitals were overcrowded by people due to dengue as most cases belonged to Tehkal area of Peshawar where dozens of automobile workshops are located but the next few years, the disease remained under control till 2022 when 18 mortalities were recorded,” said Dr Irshad.

He said that last year, the number of dengue infections in the province was 747, the lowest cases recorded by any province in the country.

Dr Irshad said that team work by several departments under the district administration paid off as meetings of district dengue response committees took place on daily basis in all districts where the situation was discussed and steps were taken accordingly.

“The role of lady health workers has been the most significant as they visited houses and scaled up awareness of women regarding the storage of water and elimination of standing water to deny breeding spots to mosquitoes,” he said.

The public health director said that they had strengthened surveillance to ensure that suspected cases were tested and preventive measures got under way. All the 36 districts had been instructed to send samples from symptomatic patients to Public Health Reference Laboratory (PHRL) at Khyber Medical University for confirmation, he added.

He said that they brought down dengue cases through use of scientific approach as they deployed 41 entomologists, who helped health department in identification and destruction of mosquito larvae and strengthening surveillance.

Published in Dawn, July 4th, 2024