Ninth life lost to Congo fever this year

35-year-old Samina from Hyderabad was admitted to JPMC on Sunday morning; 71 cases

of Congo fever now confirmed in city this year

The number of Congo fever victims in the city rose to nine on Sunday as a Hyderabad native brought to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre for treatment died of the tick-borne viral haemorrhagic disease.

Senior JPMC official Dr Seemi Jamali identified the victim as 35-year-old Samina, a resident of Hyderabad, and said she had been admitted to the facility in the morning. She said Samina was vomiting blood and had high fever and tests conducted at the Aga Khan University Hospital confirmed she was suffering from Congo fever.

Despite doctors’ best efforts, said Dr Jamali, Samina’s condition was steadily deteriorating and her death was confirmed by the evening. 

Samina’s death came a day after a 36-year-old butcher died of Congo fever at the JPMC. The man who passed away on Saturday, Muhammad Younus, 36, was a resident of Baldia Town who had been admitted to the JPMC on late Thursday night. 

A polymerase chain reaction test had confirmed that he was suffering from Congo fever. Dr Javed Jamali, the JPMC deputy director, told The News that Younus died in the afternoon.

Health officials said most of these patients died between August and September. Overall, 71 patients have been diagnosed with Congo fever in the city this year.

Congo fever is a tick-borne viral haemorrhagic disease. A person contracts the disease after coming in contact with a tick attached to cattle or the secretions of an infected animal. Most patients contracted the disease during or prior to Eid-ul-Azha.

Also on Saturday, Dr Seemi Jamali told The News that two patients diagnosed with Congo fever were forcibly taken away by their attendants from the JPMC’s isolation ward against medical advice over the past few days. 

Dr Jamali said the two patients were kept in the isolation ward to prevent other patients and hospital staff from contracting the disease. Considering their isolation as confinement, the two patients left the hospital without informing the hospital administration and against the medical advice.

Patients with Congo fever are kept in isolation wards, even separated from each other, to prevent others including doctors and paramedics from contracting the viral disease and until it is confirmed through medical examinations that they are no longer infected and cannot spread the viral disease to others, they are not allowed to leave the health facility.

Dr Jamali said they could not use force to prevent the patients from leaving the JPMC. “The attendants of the patients took them away arguing they are going to take them to some private hospital.”

Currently, a 26-year old Congo patient from Shah Faisal Colony, Asif Hanif, is under treatment at the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital. However, the ASH has no isolation ward and facilities to treat Congo fever patients. The attendants of the patient are reluctant to shift him to some other health facility in the city.