PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa health department has intensified anti-dengue efforts as the cases of the mosquito-borne disease went up from 289 last week to 339 this week amid continued lacklustre response from the Peshawar-based medical teaching institutions to the requests for sharing data about the infected people.
The province reported 50 new cases this week, prompting the health department to escalate activities for dengue control and prevention.
According to a report compiled by the Integrated Diseases Surveillance and Response System at the directorate-general health services, the relevant staff has been deployed to carry out required activities in areas which are reporting high infection rates.
It said that mosquito larvae had so far been eliminated from 551 houses, 1,280 containers and 247 outdoor sites to stop production of mosquitoes, the carriers and transmitters of the disease.
Health dept intensifies efforts for infectious disease’s control, prevention
The report also said over 87,000 sessions had been conducted to scale up awareness about the causes of the dengue and its prevention.
“During these sessions, 254,116 female workers have also been trained.
They’re required to go inside houses and inform people about the danger posed by water storage in uncovered pots and utensils, besides other preventive measures such as wearing of long-sleeve shirts and use of bed nets to stay safe from mosquito bites,” it said.
The report said Peshawar continued to stay atop the list of infected persons with 152 cases, followed by Kohat with 85 cases, Bannu 19 and Haripur 17. The cases from other districts are coming in ones and twos but Peshawar and Kohat remain the mainstays of the virus. Both have recorded 13 and 16 cases this week, respectively, according to it.
Officials said that the situation was under control as work on the Dengue Action Plan, 2026, had begun from the start of the new year.
They said meetings of district committees were taking place in timely manners where decisions were taken and implemented under the guidance of district administration and district health officers.
The officials said response began in any area where the case was reported and contact tracing was done accordingly.
They said Peshawar and Kohat are getting more response due to emergence of infections but the area of concern was lukewarm response of the medical teaching institutions despite requests by the department to coordinate regarding dengue cases so that prompt feedback could be put in place and avoid threats of outbreaks.
The officials said the health department heavily banked on the cases recorded at MTIs, the province’s largest hospitals in Peshawar, which were known for reporting more cases.
They said the department had been sending its relevant officials to MTIs with the requests to share lists of dengue patients so that measures could be initiated, but the response hadn’t been poor.
The officials feared that poor response from MTIs could turn the dengue problem into a major health crisis as Peshawar had been endemic to dengue for the last one decade and had been reporting more cases every year except last year when Charsadda recorded most cases in the province due to violent outbreaks.
They said Peshawar, the most populous city of the province, was home to dengue virus and more than a dozen villages continued to record patients every year.
The officials said the department wanted MTIs to inform it about cases along with their addresses for subsequent activities as presently, data wasn’t shared and positive cases could transmit the virus to the people in their homes and neighbourhoods.
They said that they had so far recorded 1,761 suspected dengue cases and found mosquito larvae in 14 districts before they’re destroyed mechanically. The officials said the dengue outbreak protocols and larval source management activities had been intensified but the lack of coordination on part of MTIs remained a looming threat.
Published in Dawn, August 16th, 2026
