KARACHI, Nov 8: Health experts fear that the city could be attacked by more terrible infectious or vector-borne diseases, leishmaniasis in particular, in the hot weather if the health officials continued to remain idle and take no effective preventive measures in advance.

“We have no culture of surveillance of infectious diseases or a disease reporting system which could enable us to make our preparations in advance to cope with any possible outbreak of a dangerous disease in future,” Dr Naseem Salahuddin, president of the Infectious Diseases Society of Pakistan (IDSP), told Dawn.

She said the authorities had never taken any preventive measures in the past and were not seemingly taking such action at present to sense and combat with the possible outbreak of any infectious or vector-borne disease, which could send a large size of population to the hospitals.

Many experts criticise the government’s policy of hiding facts about the incidence of dengue at initial stage. When the number of victims of suspected viral hemorrhagic fever swelled the authorities were forced to form a surveillance committee in the provincial health department to inform the public about figures of dengue patients at some major hospitals, she said.

“We had seen many cases of leishmaniasis in Karachi a couple of years ago and it could reemerge and many more infectious or vector-borne diseases could attack Karachi if we continue to remain in deep slumber,” she added.

Dr Naseem Salahuddin said the Expanded Programme of Immunisation had brought great results earlier but now its functioning had become ‘faulty and less effective’.

Dr Sikander Mendhro, a doctor by profession and a member of the Sindh Assembly belonging to the PPP, told Dawn that leishmaniasis’ attacked Dadu district some three years ago and later years saw its spread in other districts of Sindh including Nawabshah, Khairpur, Jacobabad, Nawabshah and Sukkur. It had mildly attacked Karachi a couple of years ago but its attack could be more intense if preventive measures were not taken.

Leishmaniasis is a disease caused by parasites that belong to the genus Leishmania and is transmitted by the bite of certain species of sand fly. The symptoms of leishmaniasis are skin sores which erupt weeks to months after the person affected is bitten by sand flies. Other consequences, which can become manifest anywhere from a few months to years after infection, include fever, damage to the spleen and liver, and anaemia. In the medical field, leishmaniasis is one of the famous causes of a markedly enlarged spleen, which may become larger even than the liver.

Dr Qaiser Sajjad, secretary of the Pakistan Medical Association Karachi chapter, said it was time for the government to devise a serious strategy to effectively prevent the infectious and vector-borne diseases. He said that dengue incidence should be dealt as a forewarning for the outbreak of other dangerous diseases.

According to a recent climate change report, hot temperatures and higher sea levels could devastate Asian economies, displace millions of people and put millions more at risk from infectious diseases.