KARACHI, Oct 21: Seeing no sign of a let-up in dengue fever cases, the Sindh health department has now opted to entrust about 23,000 lady health workers (LHWs) with the task of raising public awareness about dengue as public health educators.

Sources in the health department and the district government confirmed that the LHWs who had been trained for preventive and curative services in the rural, remote, poor and urban areas and mainly focused on primary health care delivery, including child, mother care and family planning, were now also contributing to various public health education campaigns, like the anti-polio drive, malaria and dengue fever.

About 100,000 lady health workers, who are paid a certain amount as monthly remuneration by the federal government, are engaged for heath services in the areas of their domicile across the country.

The director general of health in the Sindh government, Dr Ghulam Sarwar Channa, said that a meeting on surveillance and prevention of dengue was held over a week ago in Hyderabad and it was decided that necessary literature on prevention of mosquito-borne dengue fever would be distributed in the rural and urban slum areas of the province on a priority basis.

He said that 3,000 LHWs meant for the urban slums of Hyderabad and Karachi were also being provided with specially prepared literature on dengue for distribution in the households concerned.

He said that at least seven teams of health educators led by grade-17 officers were working for mass awareness in coordination with the district focal persons in various districts.

Booklets were also being prepared for information of LHWs on dengue while public awareness messages and pamphlets prepared last year were already being circulated by the LHWs in areas which were already faced with dengue fever problem or were under threat of the mosquito-borne diseases, he added.

The executive district officer (health) of the CDGK, Dr Javed Nasir Sheikh, said that the education pamphlets on dengue had already been distributed in the residents of Karachi through the LHWs during the special immunisation campaign held in September.

He said that since the budgetary allocations for public awareness campaigns in the shape of educational advertisements were limited, the CDGK health department was relying on LHWs as well for its preventive and curative campaigns on dengue.

The lady health workers posted in all the towns of Karachi for years-old maternal and child health programme were visiting door to door to form a part of the public health education campaigns as well, he added.

In the meantime, according to a daily report of the provincial dengue surveillance cell, another 51 patients suspected of suffering from dengue fever were brought to seven public and private hospitals in the city during the past 24 hours.

The number of dengue suspected patients rose to 2,587 for the year, while 1,357 people tested positive for the fever. Still 176 patients were admitted to 20 hospitals in the city.

A maximum of 48 are admitted at the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, followed by 42 at the Dr Ziauddin Hospital, 12 each at the JPMC and the CHK, 11 at the Holy Family Hospital.

So far 135 mega units of platelets have been provided to patients at 11 hospitals in view of there severe conditions while the death toll due to dengue fever remain unchanged at 12 , the surveillance cell report says.