Rawalpindi:As many as 66 individuals have tested positive for dengue fever from Rawalpindi district alone in the last five days hinting towards a possible outbreak in the next few days as the total number of confirmed dengue fever patients so far registered from the district has reached 244 apart from nearly a 100 confirmed patients reported from Murree.
Data collected by ‘The News’ on Tuesday revealed that the number of patients being tested positive for dengue fever from the district is registering a continuous sharp increase at least for the last three weeks as on August 19 this year, not more than 45 patients were confirmed positive in the district.
It is worth mentioning here that from August 4 to August 18, the number of patients confirmed positive for the infection from the district was less than 25. According to experts, the population may face a severe outbreak of the infection in the coming days. It is important that to date, well over 340 confirmed patients have been reported from the district. The experts say that the situation regarding spread of dengue fever is still under control.
The teams of District Health Authority (DHA) have been working hard in the field through door-to-door larvae identification and elimination campaigns apart from running awareness campaigns though the incidences of dengue fever are registering a continuous upward trend. The DHA is also working on surveillance and case response activities to avoid spread of dengue fever in the region. Dengue infections are generally occurred during or after rain.
According to In-charge District Disease Surveillance and Response Unit at DHA Dr. Waqar Ahmed, a total of 1290 teams have so far checked 4697248 houses in Rawalpindi this year of which 110159 houses were found positive for dengue larvae. The teams have also inspected some 1232474 spots and found 15720 spots positive and a cumulative total of 125879 larvae were detected from the positive houses and spots.