Dengue fever outbreak getting closer to its seasonal end

Islamabad: The on-going dengue fever outbreak that has proved to be the most severe in nature and effects so far in the history of the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi is getting closer to its seasonal end as the three teaching hospitals in town tested only 12 patients positive for dengue fever in last 24 hours.

The number of patients confirmed positive for the infection per day has dropped to below 20 after three months as the allied hospitals were receiving 10 to 20 patients per day on average from August 14 to August 20 this year.

Like the past 14 years, fall in temperature is playing a vital role in controlling the outbreak and not the efforts from the concerned departments. Experts believe that the current trend of decline in number of patients is due to the cold spell that restricts mosquitoes’ activity particularly outside homes and offices.

In low temperature, mosquitoes including ‘aedes aegypti’, the vector that causes dengue fever become unable to bite because of weak energy in joints that does not let them make a firm grip and mount on the body of a person for sucking blood.

In last four days, the allied hospitals including Holy Family Hospital, Benazir Bhutto Hospital and District Headquarters Hospital received a total of 72 confirmed patients showing a significant decline in number of patients though the seasonal close, according to many health experts may take another week or so.

Experts say that there may not be any case of dengue fever in December in this region of the country but it also depends on further fall in temperature.

The recent findings through the hospital based surveillance in the twin cities reveal an obvious drop in the turnout of patients being reported in hospitals in Islamabad and Rawalpindi in the month of November but the disease is still affecting scores of people mainly because of greater population of dengue fever vector.