Another 343 test positive for dengue in Karachi

A total of 343 more persons tested positive for dengue fever in Karachi during last 24 hours. Sindh health department officials said this on Monday. They added that so far 32 people had their lives due to the vector-borne infection in the mega city.

They explained that in the entire province, 419 new patients of dengue had been diagnosed during last 24 hours, including 52 in the Hyderabad division, nine in the Mirpurkhas division, six each in the Larkana and Sukkur divisions and three in the Shaheed Benazirabad division.

According to a researcher, around 85 per cent of the dengue cases being reported from different parts of Karachi in the current outbreak are caused by the ‘DEN-1’ serotype of the dengue virus that causes more severe disease to patients compared to last year when over 80 per cent cases were of a less severe variant ‘DEN-2’.

Karachi has been witnessing one of the worst dengue outbreaks in its history this year following unprecedented rains during the monsoon season as daily hundreds of dengue cases are being reported from different parts of the city.

“Of the 152 virus samples collected from different hospitals of Karachi, we analysed 60 and found that 47 of them were of the DEN-1 serotype of the dengue virus. In these patients, we have seen more severe disease compared to those infected with ‘DEN-2’ which was prevalent last year in Karachi,” said Faaria Tariq, a researcher during a recent event at the International Centre for Chemical and Biological Center (ICCBS), University of Karachi.