Hospitals continue to receive dengue fever cases

KARACHI: The intensity may be largely subdued yet hospitals in Karachi continue to receive patients with dengue fever, said Head of the Sindh Dengue Fever Surveillance Cell, Dr. Shakil Mallick on Wednesday.

Talking to APP he said one confirmed case of the fever admitted to a local hospital this morning has brought the total number of these cases to 17 in past three days.

He said these 17 cases are besides 101 patients who reported with dengue fever like symptoms at out patient departments of different hospitals during recent past while another 141 were admitted to more than 10 different hospitals during the same period.

"Fortunately these patients were found not to be suffering from dengue fever although they were suspected to be suffering from the ailment," said Dr. Shakil Mallick.

He mentioned that two patients were also brought to different hospitals at Hyderabad but necessary laboratory investigations revealed that they were not dengue fever positive.

In reply to a question, he said patients reporting with dengue fever like symptoms can be suffering from other health conditions, however, since these ailments were not within the purview of the surveillance cell therefore other details were not available with him.

To another query, he said dengue fever is basically an ailment peculiar to urban areas and therefore rarely reported from rural sector.

"This is consequent to urbanization and its associated aspects as fresh water not adequately or properly used neither necessarily covered providing every opportunity to the Aedes Egypti (mosquito) to breed in," he elaborated.

The Head of Sindh Dengue Fever Surveillance Cell said a steady decline is registered in the incidence rate of the disease during the current year.

"With winters to set in soon we expect people will largely escape the ailment," he said.