Dengue fever outbreak in twin cities fades away

33 cases, one death reported in last one week

Rawalpindi: The dengue fever outbreak in the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi has almost come to an end though the infection has claimed another life here at the Holy Family Hospital in town in last one week taking total number of deaths caused by the infection to eight this year.

The three teaching hospitals in town, however, are still receiving sporadic cases of dengue fever as in last one week, as many as 33 patients have been confirmed positive for the infection while in last 24 hours, only two patients were confirmed positive.

The outbreak in the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi lost its intensity mainly because of fall in temperature and according to health experts, the dengue fever patients being reported recently at the allied hospitals are those who contracted infection three to seven days back.

Health experts have expressed to ‘The News’ that the dengue fever outbreak would completely fade away after the first week of December however, they suggest that people would have to work hard for checking breeding of dengue fever vector, mosquito ‘aedes aegypti’ to avoid outbreak in the next year.

Data collected by ‘The News’ on Monday reveals that the number of confirmed cases of dengue fever is continuously decreasing as some three weeks back, not less than 300 patients were undergoing treatment at the three teaching hospitals while on Monday, only 27 patients including 11 confirmed cases were undergoing treatment at the allied hospitals.

It is important that the recent dengue fever outbreak claimed a total of eight lives, six at Holy Family Hospital and two at Benazir Bhutto Hospital.

To date, the allied hospitals have tested a total of 3,283 patients positive for dengue fever of which 1,697 were confirmed positive at HFH, 1353 at BBH and 233 at District Headquarters Hospital.

In last 24 hours, only two patients were tested positive for dengue fever at the HFH while BBH and DHQ Hospital did not receive any patient of the infection.

During the recent dengue fever outbreak, as many as 20,022 patients visited dengue outpatient departments at the allied hospitals of which 11,151 patients were suspected for the infection and the allied hospitals had to admit over 5,138 patients for treatment of dengue fever.

The most alarming fact during the recent outbreak was that the allied hospitals received as many as 981 cases of Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever and 55 cases of Dengue Shock Syndrome that are more fatal forms of dengue fever.

It is also important that majority of patients reaching allied hospitals in town was from the federal capital as not less than 2,000 patients belonging to Islamabad were tested positive at the three teaching hospitals in town.