Covid units at major city hospitals being turned into dengue wards as two more die

As two more people died of dengue in District Central of Karachi on Saturday, the health authorities in Sindh asked tertiary-care hospitals in Karachi to convert their Covid-19 high dependency units (HDUs) into dengue isolation and treatment wards to accommodate the growing number of patients of the viral disease.

The authorities also asked the Sindh Healthcare Commission (SHCC) to collect data from the public and private hospitals in Karachi so that an effective strategy could be formed to combat dengue.

Officials in the Sindh health department told The News on Saturday that the provincial health minister, Dr Azra Pechuho, was not satisfied with the performance of the directorate of the vector-borne disease control, which not only failed to control the dengue outbreak in the province, especially in Karachi, but also failed to collect the data of dengue cases in the province.

An official revealed that Dr Azra had expressed her displeasure at the performance of Additional Director Vector-Borne Diseases Dr Teerathdas, and asked the SHCC to start collecting the data of dengue patients from major hospitals and labs to ascertain the actual situation of the dengue outbreak in the province, especially Karachi.

According to officials of the vector-borne disease control directorate, 324 people had tested positive for dengue in Karachi during the last 24 hours.

Director Health Karachi Dr Hameed Jumani said the SHCC had also been asked by the provincial government to seal the health facilities that were not providing the data of dengue patients to the health department. He added that on the directives from the health minister, they had started converting Covid-19 HDUs into isolation and treatment centres for dengue patients. “Initially, we are establishing dengue treatment wards at Covid-19 high dependency units at major public hospitals, including the Civil Hospital Karachi, Trauma Centre, Lyari General Hospital and Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre,” Dr Jumani said, adding that they were also going to ask private hospitals to use their HDUs to accommodate dengue patients.

SHCC Chief Executive Officer Dr Ahson Qavi said they had sent teams to most of the major private health facilities in Karachi and other cities of Sindh to collect data of dengue patients. He added that from the next week, they were hoping to have the actual data of dengue patients in the province.

“We are also nominating focal persons at each hospital being visited by us so that they could be contacted in case of any dereliction on their part,” Dr Qavi explained, adding that they were also going to collect data from major diagnostic labs conducting dengue NS1 antigen test and dengue serology tests.