RAWALPINDI, March 11: The district health department has launched a retrospective study into the deaths of three patients, initially suspected of suffering from Crimean-Congo Haemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), but later proved negative for the fever by a report from South Africa.

Talking to this reporter on Tuesday, District Health Officer Dr Shoaib Khan said the cases were certainly viral haemorrhagic fever, but they had been proved to be negative for Crimean-Congo type.

“The report from South Africa does not rule out the possibilities of other types of viral haemorrhagic fevers or some rare type of poisoning or medication by a quack,” he said.

Stressing on the need for such a probe, the District Health Officer said lack of awareness about the causes of these incidents might hinder the health department from pre-empting much broader outbreaks in future.

He said Dr Khalid Islam of the health department would work along with the epidemiology team to further probe the deaths.

“We have chalked out our strategy and will be looking into previous infections and family history of the patients,” Dr Khan said.

The district health officer said there were several types of haemorrhagic viruses existing in the region, though undetected but could cause more havoc than AIDS.Insects like ticks and mites transmit these diseases and are known by over 70 names denoting the geographic area. Haemorrhagic fevers are often fatal and patients suffer from headache, muscular pain, massive haemorrhage, either locally or throughout the body, finally ending in death.

Disease history shows that life threatening viral haemorrhagic fevers often arise when human beings move into unexplored terrain or when living conditions deteriorate in ways that generated new viral hosts.

Rawalpindi district has been the focus for the second consecutive year for deaths resulting from haemorrhagic fever and that too almost during the same period of both years.