With 187 more, KP dengue count rises to 1,598

PESHAWAR: The number of dengue patients in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa jumped to 1598 as 187 more people, majority of them belonging to the provincial capital, were infected with the virus on Thursday.

According to the data released by the public sector hospitals, seven people have lost their lives in the battle against the mosquito-borne disease in the province and all of the deceased belonged to Peshawar.

The dengue virus that was first reported in Peshawar and later became an epidemic due to the apathy of the provincial government. It has now spread to other districts such as Mardan, Nowshera, Swabi, Mansehra, Malakand, and Lower Dir.

The provincial government has already announced free services to the dengue patients. And all dengue patients have been exempted from admission fee as well as investigation charges in all the public sector hospitals.

However, some patients and their attendants complained that they had been forced to pay Rs100 as initial admission fee at the Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH).

Also, the patients said that except dengue investigation, which are done free to most of the patients, all dengue patients were made to pay for other investigations in the hospital.

Some of the dengue patients in Medical-D ward of the KTH claimed that they were sent to a private laboratory by a doctor on duty.

“The doctor sent me and other patients to a private laboratory where I paid Rs2,800 for the dengue test and was tested positive,” one of these patients, Noorullah Khan, told The News in the ward, declared as isolation ward for dengue patients.

The KTH administration has declared two medical wards as isolation units for dengue patients. Since the epidemic took place in Tehkal area adjacent to KTH, the majority of these patients thronged the same health facility.

Dr Hussain Ahmad Haroon, president Pakistan Medical Association (PMA), also criticised the KTH administration for charging dengue patients.

“I met almost over a dozen of patients in KTH and all of them had paid admission fees as well as other expenses for investigations other than dengue. This is an epidemic but the government is just joking with these poor dengue patients,” Dr Haroon complained.

Also, he said the dengue patients were made to go after the resident medical officer (RMO) in KTH for approving the charges of their investigations free. He said the process had been made difficult to force the patients getting their investigations done from private labs. 

According to a data released by the Dengue Response Unit, which was set up two days ago at the Health Department, 982 patients were tested in Peshawar and 167 among them were diagnosed as dengue positive.

Out of them, 740 patients were tested in KTH in which 141 were tested positive. In LRH, 209 patients were tested and 22 were diagnosed as dengue positive while four patients were tested positive out of 33 patients in the Naseerullah Babar Teaching Hospital, Peshawar.

In Mardan, out of 104 patients, 16 were tested dengue positive and nine more patients were admitted at the Mardan Medical Complex.

A senior physician and head of medicine department in MMC, Prof Ameer Khan, has been made focal person for dengue control room. The MMC administration has declared a third medical unit as an isolation ward for dengue patients.

Health Minister Shahram Khan during a press conference here said the government is committed to utilising all the available resources for providing better care to the patients. He said that they had launched a vigorous drive against dengue virus. Shahram Khan said only seven people died of the disease in KP.

He said that during the campaign, 4000 houses were cleared after proper insecticide spray and awareness tips to the residents.

The minister said that like poliovirus, they would soon eradicate dengue virus in the province.

Meanwhile, Deputy Commissioner Peshawar Saqib Raza Aslam chaired a meeting of the district administration and led the teams tasked with conducting insecticides spray and providing tablets for water purification to the residents of three union councils.

Besides assistant commissioners and other staff of the district administration, Nazim Town-III Mohammad Ali Arbab also attended the meeting and decided to seek assistance of prayer leaders so they can talk about awareness regarding dengue prevention in their Friday sermons.

Saqib Raza raised the number of teams working for prevention of dengue from 50 to 90. He said their teams conducted insecticides spray in 5600 houses in Tehkal while female workers informed women of the affected about preventive measures.

The district administration has imposed Section 144 against keeping of old tyres in front of shops and arrested 84 more people on violation of the law from Tehkal, University Road and Charsadda Road.

Besides this, the doctors along with three mobile health units sent by Chief Minister Punjab Shehbaz Sharif continued providing OPD, screening, investigation services and medicines to the people of three union councils on Thursday.

Dr Muhammad Farrukh Sultan, additional director general health services Punjab, told The News that their teams had provided 3644 patients from Saturday to Wednesday night.

He said that out of 3644 patients, 757 were tested and 210 of them were found dengue positive.

There are 128 staff members on these three mobile health units came from Punjab, 18 among them are doctors. Besides them, six doctors are working on the six ambulances also came from Punjab with these mobile units.

Dr Farrukh Sultan said eight doctors of their team were involved in capacity building training of the local staff in Peshawar. He said after covering the three union councils, the Director General Health Services KP Dr Shabina Raza is expected to relocate the three mobile health units on Friday.