ICT Health Department carries out case response activity

Islamabad

Islamabad Capital Territory Health Department has carried out case response activity for surveillance against dengue fever in a village in Sangjani from where the first case of the infection this year in ICT area has been confirmed positive on Wednesday afternoon.

The 50-year-old female patient Sirajan Bibi, wife of Pervez, a resident of Khas Mohallah, Dhoke Malyaran, Sangjani, in district Islamabad. The patient has been confirmed positive for dengue fever on April 27 at Benazir Bhutto Hospital in Rawalpindi where she has been undergoing treatment to date.

Data collected by ‘The News’ on Friday reveals that the patient reached his native village last week from KSA after performing ‘Umrah’. The office of the Executive District Officer (Health) Rawalpindi notified the ICT Health Department of the patient being treated at the BBH soon after her confirmation for case response activity in her native village.

A team of ICT Health department visited the village, Dhoke Malyaran on Thursday that contains 28 houses in all surrounded by fields. Five of the 28 houses were locked however the team of ICT health department performed Insecticidal Residual Spray in 23 houses and applied temiphos, an organophosphate larvicide on water accumulation in and around the village, said Assistant District Health Officer at ICT Health Department Dr. Muhammad Najeeb Durrani, while talking to ‘The News’ on Friday.

He added the team of health department has also performed fumigation in the area that contains garbage dumps. He, however, added that the health department’s team did not find larvae of dengue fever vector ‘aedes aegypti’ in the area that hints that the patient got infected in KSA while staying there for performing ‘Umrah’.

He said the patient is stable and is undergoing treatment at the BBH. The patient is the first case of dengue fever reported in 2016 in the ICT area, however, the health department has carried out case response activity in her area of residence timely to avoid spread of the infection, said Dr. Durrani while responding to a query.