Dengue fever claims another four lives in Pindi

Rawalpindi: The on-going dengue fever outbreak being termed as the most severe in nature in the history twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi has claimed four more lives here at the three teaching hospitals in town taking total number of deaths so far reported due to dengue fever at the allied hospitals this year to 40.

According to details, the infection claimed three more lives at Holy Family Hospital in last three days while one more patient die of the infection at District Headquarters Hospital. From September 5 this year to date, as many as 24 patients died of the infection at HFH, 10 at Benazir Bhutto Hospital and six at DHQ Hospital.

Data collected by ‘The News’ on Thursday has revealed that as many as 185 more patients have been tested positive at HFH, BBH and DHQ Hospital in last three days taking the total number of patients so far confirmed positive for the infection at the allied hospitals to 11467 this year.

This year, the dengue fever outbreak has set a new record for both the number of deaths it caused and the total number of confirmed patients reported in this region of the country. The outbreak has already started losing intensity yet the number of deaths being caused by the infection is continuously on the rise.

For the last one week, the allied hospitals have been receiving 60 to 80 confirmed patients of dengue fever per day on average where as the number was between 120 to 150 after the second week of October this year while in September, the allied hospitals were testing 250 to 300 patients positive for the infection per day on average.

In last 24 hours, the allied hospitals tested as many as 64 patients positive for the infection while on Thursday morning, the hospitals were waiting for final results in 34 cases. On Thursday, a total of 230 patients including 174 confirmed patients of dengue fever were undergoing treatment at the three teaching hospitals while 14 confirmed patients including three patients suffering from dengue haemorrhagic fever and 11 patients suffering from dengue shock syndrome were undergoing treatment at high dependency units of HFH and BBH.

It is important that 40 per cent of the total confirmed patients of dengue fever reaching allied hospitals in town are residents of the federal capital.

To date, a total of 5923 patients have been confirmed positive for dengue fever at the HFH while BBH has already tested as many as 3327 patients positive for the infection and DHQ Hospital has received a total of 2217 confirmed patients of dengue fever so far this year.