ISLAMABAD, March 1: All federal and provincial hospitals have been put on high alert after the outbreak of ‘Congo fever’, the federal health minister, Dr Abdul Malik Kasi, said.
The Punjab health department has been asked to involve animal husbandry to check the epidemic, Mr Kasi said.
The federal health authorities have requested the Punjab government to destroy ‘ticks’, the apparent source of Crimean Congo Haemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), by asking the animal husbandry department to spray chemicals.
Dr Kasi told reporters here at his Secretariat that Congo fever was under control as both the federal as well as the provincial governments had taken appropriate preventive measures. Besides, efforts were also being made to acquire 20 doses of intravenous vaccines as the present stock of six had depleted to two only. The medicine is very expensive with each course costing $10,000.
He also appealed to the people not to be scared as the disease’s early warning system was fully operational at the National Institute of Health (NIH) and was monitoring the entire situation in the country.
The minister was talking to reporters in the wake of four recent deaths due to Congo virus in Rawalpindi.
The director-general, Health, Rear Admiral Mohammad Aslam, NIH’s executive director, Dr Athar Saeed Dil, Pims’ executive director Prof Azhar Mahmood Qureshi, Medical Superintendent (MS), Federal Government Services Hospital (FGSH), Dr Javaid Chaudhry and MS, Holy Family hospital (HFH), Rawalpindi, Dr Nisar Cheema were also present.
The reporters were told that a team of specialists had been sent to Bagh in Azad Kashmir from where the first patient came to the HFH.
Dr Athar Saeed Dil informed that the blood samples of 15 affected Congo virus patients had been dispatched to laboratories in South Africa, as Pakistan, like many other countries, lacked a sophisticated laboratory which required P-3 level facilities. However, the NIH was trying to develop such a sophisticated laboratory at its premises.
Similarly, the hospital staff has been informed about the preventive measures. The report from South Africa is likely to arrive in a week’s time.
Meanwhile, Prof Abbas Hayat Baloch, professor of pathology in the Rawalpindi Medical College (RMC), said 49 people were under strict surveillance as they had direct or indirect contacts with the Congo virus-affected patients, who died in the hospital.
The HFH management had a list of 131 people who came into close contact with the Congo virus patients. It has admitted 12 patients who have been kept under isolation which also includes two doctors. They have been put on prophylactic treatment which costs Rs4,115 per patient.
To a question, Dr Athar warned the people not to take oral anti-virus medicines, as these were very strong medicines though cheap and manufactured locally.
He also suggested that the doctors, especially the paramedics, should take extra care and insist on the history of a patient before treating him or her because the symptoms of CCHF were quite similar to that of common flu. He also assured that the virus could be treated if detected at an initial stage.
Giving details, he said 192 cases of the CCHF had been reported from 1976 till date, out of which 63 people died with 30 per cent mortality rate. The first case was reported in 1976 in Chaghi and Loralai (Balochistan).
The Pims’ executive director also informed that the blood bank and the hospital’s pathology laboratories, which the management had sealed, would soon be reopened after NIH certification.