Congo fever patient admitted to JPMC’s isolation ward

The Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) received another patient with Cong Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF) within a span of two weeks on Tuesday.

The patient’s condition is critical and he has been placed in isolation in the Medical ICU of the hospital.

“An 18-year-old guy from Quetta was taken to a private hospital with high-grade fever, bleeding from nose and upper GI tract and low platelets, and from there he has been shifted to the JPMC in a precarious condition. The young man is a butcher by profession and has been tested positive for Congo Crimean Homorrhagic Fever (CCHF),” JPMC Executive Director Dr Seemin Jamali told The News on Tuesday night.

Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever is a tick-borne disease with high mortality and usually people who deal with cattle and livestock, including butchers, shepherds and farmers, contract the disease through infected animals or the ticks found on the bodies of cattle and dogs.

The JPMC had received the year’s first patient of Congo fever a couple of weeks ago, who remained in the intensive care unit of the hospital and survived the lethal disease due to proper treatment and care given to him by doctors and staff of the hospital, said Dr Seemin Jamali said.

Two persons have been died due to CCHF in the country so far this year, including a woman from Mianwali, who died at a private hospital in Islamabad in April, while a resident of Lyari passed away at a private hospital in Karachi.