PESHAWAR, Oct 1: The federal government is likely to adopt the four-pronged strategy for dengue control in the country after its effective implementation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, official sources say.
“The federal government is in the process of adopting the strategy to put brakes on the current dengue epidemic and keep constant check on the mosquito-borne disease in future,” they said.
The officials said that the strategy, devised and implemented by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government, was praised by representatives of all the provinces in a meeting held in Islamabad last week.
They said that the federal health ministry had formed respective health department's group in each of the four provinces to provide suggestions concerning dengue control measures.
“The presentation made by the KP health department's group received much appreciation in the first meeting held last week in Islamabad and it is likely that the provinces would be asked to adopt the same strategy to check and prevent the disease,” they said.
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which has so far recorded five deaths from the dengue fever, had already implemented the four-pronged strategy, including disease's surveillance, integrated vector control management, advocacy communication, and social mobilization and case management that prevented the disease from becoming epidemic in the province.
Under the strategy, measures have been taken for vector control in the high-risk areas to control spread of the virus through mosquitoes, they said, adding that under this component of the strategy only insecticide spray was done in selected areas to target the habitat of the dengue virus and know about the biting habits of the mosquitoes and their stages of development.
“The vector control strategy is a joint effort of several government departments for which the chief secretary has already issued directives,” they said.
Surveillance of disease is another area for which fever clinics have been established in outpatient departments (OPDs) of all the hospitals of the province and patients coming with temperatures are registered and tested for the disease.
“Those tested positive are admitted to the hospitals where they are given blood transfusion if needed. The patients required only management and they don't need any drug,” officials who attended the meeting in Islamabad, told Dawn .
Even if a patient is confirmed to be a dengue positive it doesn't mean that they will die because in 95 to 98 per cent cases the dengue fever is self-limiting and subsides after a week, while only two percent of the confirmed patients need proper management, they said.
The sources said that the KP's representatives also argued in the Islamabad meeting that the dengue virus spread in Punjab was due to lack of preventive measures.
“Our officials argued that vector control is not a problem because we already have a huge infrastructure, but the only thing we have to do is to utilise the available resources properly and timely,” they said.
Advocacy and communication are the other areas where the government could do much to prevent occurrence of deaths from dengue in future. For this purpose, walks, seminars and advertisements in media were suggested, the officials said, adding that the federal government was quite impressed with the KP's strategy.
“The KP's strategy will be implemented in all the provinces and directives in this regard will be issued in a meting next week,” the official sources said.