PESHAWAR: Health department has deployed five more medical entomologists to control the outbreak of Dengue Haemorrhagic Fever in Charsadda, which has so far infected 718 persons, mostly in August.

Officials told this scribe that Charsadda accounted for more than 65 per cent of cases recorded in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the current year. The department has asked medical entomologists in Mardan, Chitral Lower, Dir Lower and Torghar districts to report to district health officer of Charsadda where the outbreak of the vector-borne disease continues.

According to the directorate of vector-borne disease at directorate general health services Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the outbreak in Charsadda started in August when it recorded 714 patients, mostly from two union councils where authorities deployed lady health workers and healthcare workers to cope with the situation.

The whole province has 57 hospitalisations due to dengue. Patients have been admitted to district headquarters hospital Charsadda. They have been kept in a specially established isolated ward. Of the total infected persons, 661 have already recovered and sent home.

Two union councils of the district have been hit hard by the disease

Officials said they dispatched impregnated bed nets to Charsadda district that were distributed among the people of the infected union councils. They said that they launched awareness campaign to inform people about causative agents of the mosquitoes-borne ailment.

They said that health department in collaboration with line departments was working to eliminate pools of stagnant water in the endemic areas and deny sanctuaries to mosquitoes. They said that standing water in localities as well as in uncovered water-carrying pots inside homes were the main reason of breeding sites of mosquitoes, the carriers and transmitters of the disease.

Officials said that the 11 flood-affected districts were safe from the disease and enough equality of bed nets and insecticidal spray were sent to Buner, Swabi and other districts to put brakes on dengue. The department has mobilised its staff to scale up awareness campaign and enable people to escape mosquito-bites, not to only stay safe from dengue but also from malaria and leishmaniasis.

Other worst-hit districts by dengue are Haripur with 93 cases, Mansehra 71 cases, Swabi 43 cases, Peshawar 41 cases, Kohat 36 cases, Abbottabad 32 cases, Nowshera 22 cases, Buner 17 cases, Swat 15 and Bajaur 11 cases.

The disease is widespread but the rest of the districts hadn’t reported many cases and situation remained under control, officials said.

According to them, district headquarters hospitals across the province have established isolation wards on the directives of the director-general health services, Dr Shahid Yunis, and advisory regarding diagnosis and management of cases had also been shared with the relevant officials at district and tehsil level.

A report released by Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response System (IDSRS) of public health section at directorate general health services said that flood-hit districts had so far recorded 70,981 patients including 2,229 during the last 24 hours.

They suffer from communicable diseases. A total of 339 deaths have been documented in 11 districts so far while the tally of injured people is 357.

The number of water and food-borne and eye-related diseases has been on the downtrend with fewer cases of snake and dog bites, according to the report.

It said that people were also being examined in health facilities while medical camps were set up in those areas where hospitals had been damaged by floods. The department established 468 camps so far, it added.

Published in Dawn, September 8th, 2025