PESHAWAR, Oct 13: The death of a man suspected to be suffering from dengue fever has set off alarm bells in the health department and has caused panic among the general public, according to officials.
They said Shamus Rehman, a resident of Peshawar, had come from Karachi where he worked as a menial worker. Initially, he remained hospitalised there but was shifted to his native Peshawar after his condition didn’t improve.
The 43-year-old man received treatment at home, but his fever didn’t subside and was shifted to the Lady Reading Hospital on Thursday where he died the same day.
Doctors said they had sent his blood samples to the National Institute of Health, Islamabad, the results of which would be made available after Eidul Fitr. However, they said the patient might have caught dengue virus in Karachi.
A seven-year-old boy died from dengue haemorrhagic fever in October. The National Institute of Health had confirmed that his death had occurred because of dengue fever, according to Dr Mohammad Saeed Akbar Khan, WHO’s operation medical officer for the NWFP and Fata.
He said that Mohammad Jamil, son of Malik Jehan, of the Mera village in the Kabal tehsil of Swat was brought to the Khyber Teaching Hospital on Oct 15 with high fever, purpuric rash, homeostasis and in deeply comatose condition. On the third day, he developed abnormal behaviour and started purpuric rash bleeding from gastro-intestinal tract and oliguria. His kidneys were not functioning properly.
On the fourth day, he went into shock. The patient was also treated for maintice, acute renal failure and cerebral malaria.
“On examination, he was found deadly comatose, oedematous and fits off and on. Clinically, he had hyponatriaemia and deranged renal function,” said a physician at the KTH.
He said that several patients had been admitted to local hospitals last year and it had been diagnosed that most of the patients had got the virus while in Karachi. He said that some relatives of the patients had also been treated in Karachi for dengue fever.
The NWFP has the history of dengue fever, saying that an army cadet had died of dengue fever, while another had been admitted to the Combined Military Hospital, Rawalpindi, with haemorrhagic dengue fever in Haripur district three years ago.
WHO officials said that millions of NWFP’s people who worked in Karachi had returned homes to celebrate Eidul Fitr with their families. In such circumstances, they said, the people should take preventive measures to be safe from the fever.
WHO officials said that there were two forms of the disease – dengue fever, which has a benign and self-limiting course and dengue haemorrhagic fever, a severe form of the disease. It can be fatal if unrecognized and not properly treated.
Symptoms of the dengue fever are high fever, severe frontal headache, retro-orbital pain, myalgia, arthralgias, nausea and vomiting, and often a macula-popular rash. In addition, many patients may notice a change in taste sensation. The illness is clinically indistinguishable from influenza, measles or rubella. This acute phase lasts up to one week followed by 1-2 week period of convalescence characterized by weakness, malaise and anorexia.