Medical experts rubbish PTI allegations against PML-N leader

PESHAWAR: Medical experts have rejected Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) allegations against Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Arbab Khizer Hayat for intentionally providing a favourable environment for growth of dengue mosquito’s larvae at his home.

The PTI’s official twitter account on Saturday posted news clipping from a local newspaper that claimed that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Health Department team found dengue larvae from PML-N leader Arbab Khizer Hayat’s house in Tehkal. It stated that the larvae was found in the air-cooler placed in his house.

However, medical experts rejected these accusations as baseless. Member of Dengue Expert Advisory Group Punjab, Dr. Muhammad Zaman Khan argued that a typical dengue mosquito’s lifetime flight radius was less than 200 meters. “Therefore, if a dengue mosquito is found somewhere, it can only infect the locality within the 200 meters range, it can’t be responsible for dengue outbreak all over KP,” he reasoned.

Dr Zaman, who is also the focal person for dengue at Jinnah Hospital, Lahore, said that such political statements were made in 2012 as well.

Dr Zaman, who had trained doctors at Swat when dengue outbreak affected the district in 2013, argued that the actual reasons for dengue’s sudden outbreak in KP was uncovered water reserves and lack of regulation by the provincial authorities. Dr Soma Saeed, a medical officer at Jinnah Hospital in Lahore, also dismissed these claims. She argued that if larvae of dengue mosquito were found at a certain place, it doesn’t ascertain purposeful growth of its specie. “Since dengue virus is already prevalent in KP, there is a possibility for it to be found anywhere,” she pointed out.

According to the official report of KP Health Department, unveiled on Sunday around 60,000 suspected dengue cases were reported in 13 districts of KP.

The report said that 12,632 patients tested positive for dengue virus from among 60,665 screened out of a total of 60,807 reported cases.

The department confirmed 49 deaths from the mosquito-borne viral disease throughout the province, while around 400 patients were under treatment at different hospitals.