close
Tuesday March 19, 2024

Steps needed to avoid dengue fever outbreak

By Muhammad Qasim
April 24, 2018

Islamabad: Possibility of dengue fever outbreak cannot be ruled out as almost all risk factors including rains, rising temperature, infected travellers and heaps of garbage and rubbish dumps along with larvae of dengue fever vector and adult mosquitoes are very much in existence in this region of the country.

Data collected by ‘The News’ has revealed that so far, a total of three confirmed patients of dengue fever have been reported at Holy Family Hospital in town of which one patient reached hospital from AJK, one from Sargodha and one from Saudi Arabia.

The teams of ICT Health Department and district health department Rawalpindi have already started finding larvae of ‘aedes aegypti’, the vector that causes dengue fever along with adult mosquitoes while the most suitable season for breeding of dengue fever vector has almost set in.

Additional District Health Officer at ICT Health Department Dr Muhammad Najeeb Durrani expressed to ‘The News’ that there are chances of spread of dengue fever in coming weeks. He, however, added that a possible outbreak of dengue fever can be avoided by avoiding breeding of mosquitoes and by controlling their growth inside and outside homes at the time. It is time to take precautionary measures religiously by both the concerned government authorities and the individuals, he said.

He, like other health experts believe that the community has to destroy possible breeding sites of mosquitoes mechanically that can harbor larvae to develop into adult mosquitoes as it is a must to avoid a possible outbreak of dengue fever.

Dr. Durrani, who is an epidemiologist and Member Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN) explained that the dengue fever mosquitoes both ‘aedes aegypti’ and ‘aedes albopictus’ are vectors that cause dengue fever as the female ‘aedes’ mosquitoes carry one of the four types of dengue virus from the dengue patient to the healthy person and transmit the disease.

It is important that usually, the dengue fever vector lay the first eggs of the year at the beginning of May and the mosquito density is maximal in early July, late August and early September while the egg laying activity remains continued until November. The dengue fever and dengue hemorrhagic fever cases increase proportionally with the larval density.

Dr. Durrani said the ICT Health Department has already started carrying out field activities with aims to reduce the mosquito-genic sites and to control the population of immature and adult ‘aedes aegypti’.