ISLAMABAD, Oct 28: The Health Ministry on Saturday requested the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) and the Railways to disinfect their respective warehouses and cargo containers to keep dengue mosquitoes from migrating to other cities of the country from Karachi.

An official source told Dawn that the health professionals believed that the current outbreak of mosquito- borne disease in Rawalpindi and Islamabad might be the result of the movement of the killer mosquito from Karachi through cargo containers. It is also a possibility that the warehouses of both the Railways and the PIA may be infested with mosquitoes or their larvae because the “Aedes Aegypti” usually lives in dark and cool places, the source said.

Dengue viruses are always transmitted to humans through the bites of infective female Aedes mosquitoes, which generally acquire the virus while feeding on the blood of an infected person. These mosquitoes can also transmit virus to their offspring by transovarial (via the eggs) transmission.

Meanwhile, the total number of positive dengue virus cases in Islamabad and Rawalpindi now stands at 71 (41 from different hospitals of Rawalpindi and 30 from Islamabad) out of 145 samples received from various hospitals of twin cities and tested by the National Institute of Health (NIH).

The NIH has also received 50 fresh samples of suspected cases of dengue fever from the twin cities, Khushab and Peshawar during the last 24 hours. No deaths have been reported from elsewhere in the country except Karachi till date.

During the last 24 hours, 51 patients admitted earlier with signs and symptoms of dengue fever have been discharged from different hospitals in Karachi and parts of Sindh after full recovery, while 39 more suspects were admitted. No deaths have been reported form Karachi during the last 24 hours. The total number of deaths reported during the current wave of dengue fever in Karachi stands at 27.

According to Sindh Health Department, the total number of patients who reported to different hospitals in the province with dengue fever-like symptoms since October 2 now stands at 1,641.—Staff Reporter