Joint efforts stressed to eradicate dengue

LAHORE : Principal Prof Dr Muhammad Al-freed Zafar and Executive Director of Punjab Institute of Neurosciences (PINS) Prof Dr Khalid Mahmood have said that dengue is not only a medical but a social problem which needs to be overcome with joint efforts.

They expressed these views while launching a self-cleaning campaign from their offices in the light of the announcement of Anti-Dengue Day and orders of the Punjab government.

"The community will have to use all its energies to eradicate dengue mosquito breeding while fulfilling its responsibilities as sanitation and cleanliness is the real enemy of dengue so we all have to make the environment clean," said Prof. Al-freed Zafar and Prof Dr Khalid Mahmood while launching a self-cleaning drive from their offices for Anti-Dengue Day on the orders of the Punjab government.

They said that the duties of doctors and paramedics start when a dengue patient is brought to the hospital. MS LGH Dr Khalid bin Aslam distributed pamphlets on dengue fever symptoms and precautions among the patients and their relatives in the Emergency and OPD of the hospital.

He also appealed to people for playing their due roles in the eradication of dengue and also implement Corona SOPs for public welfare.

Assistant Prof. Medicine Dr Muhammad Maqsood said the initial symptoms of dengue include high fever, severe pain and feeling of weakness, pain in legs and joints and headache. These include changes in taste, redness of the face, or pinking of certain parts of the body and a cold. He said that in this fever, the pain in the joints and muscles becomes so severe that a patient feels his bones are breaking, hence it is also called 'break bone fever'. Dr Maqsood said that the number of platelets in a person is 1.5 million to 4.5 million per microliter of blood, which can be reduced from 90,000 to 100,000 in seasonal fever, while in the case of dengue virus, the number of platelets is significantly reduced to about 20,000 or so. He pointed out that the most common victims of dengue are people having weak immune systems while dengue is caused by the bite of a specific female mosquito.

Principal PGMI/AMC said that waste materials should not be accumulated on rooftops so that rainwater may not accumulate to cause the breeding of dengue mosquitoes. He said that ignoring the precautionary measures is not so safe for anyone. ED PINS Prof. Mahmood said that the dengue mosquito breeds too fast to control it. To eradicate this problem, never allow water to gather in neglected places which is the main reason for breeding dengue mosquitoes, he added.

Experts said that clinical sprays and fouling etc. are harmful to human health and can cause problems for patients suffering from respiratory and asthmatic diseases, and excessive use of clinical medicine does not leave a healthy person unaffected. Prof. Al-freed urged the doctors and other staff to ensure hygiene measures in the LGH following the dengue SOPs so that mosquito breeding could not take place.