ISLAMABAD, Aug 31: The management of Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) on Friday said they had received first case of dengue some two weeks back.

A seven-month pregnant Rehana Bibi, 20, hailing from Mianwali, visited the hospital with symptoms of dengue.

The hospital’s emergency ward admitted the woman and sent her blood samples to the National Institute of Health for screening.

“It emerged a few days back that Ms Rehana was a positive case of dengue fever,” the executive director of the Pims Prof Mahmood Jamal told Dawn.

Prof Jamal said: “The female patient has already been discharged after treatment at the hospital’s special ward established to treat dengue patients.”

The executive director maintained that patients with dengue symptoms often visited the emergency ward or the outpatient departments but “the situation in Islamabad is not critical.”

Prof Jamal said that so far “we have not run short of any medicine or equipment”.

Since the start of the dengue outbreak in 2011, about 1,300 people had got themselves tested at the Pims and over 200 at Federal Government Services Hospital (Polyclinic).

An administration official, however, added that Pims had so far in this season received five dengue suspects from Islamabad and the situation was not alarming.

Meanwhile, regarding the preparation for treating dengue pateints Prof Jamal said that the hospital management had already sounded an alert in March this year and was ready to meet any endemic situation.

He said that an isolation ward at Pims had been dedicated for dengue patients.

Prof Jamal maintained 25 beds had been reserved for dengue patients while in case of any outbreak of the disease; Pims has the capacity to tackle over 100 patients.

Relating to the treatment of dengue patients, Prof Jamal said Pims maintained good stock of blood platelets, the essential ingredients for the treatment of the disease.

According to public health experts, if timely treatment was not provided, the disease may turn into life-threatening dengue hemorrhagic fever.

The expert said that fever might lead to bleeding, low levels of platelets and blood plasma leakage, or into dengue shock syndrome — a dangerously low blood pressure.

“The blood bank officials have already been conveyed with the directions to have a separate desk to address the demand of blood and platelets needs,” added the executive director.

“We have learnt a lot from previous experience when we ran out of platelets and this time we also have platelets kits,” said the official.

He said the National Institute of Health would assist in early diagnosis of the disease.