Dengue claims three more lives in Karachi

Three more people died due to complications of dengue fever during treatment at private health facilities in Karachi, Sindh health department officials said on Thursday, adding that so far 41 people had died due to dengue fever in the province, including 37 in Karachi alone.

“Dengue fever has claimed the lives of three more people, all males. Two of them died during treatment at Aga Khan University Hospital, while one died at Dr Ziauddin Hospital,” an official of the provincial health department said.

The official said one patient, who was from the Sanghar district of the province, breathed his last during treatment at the AKUH on October 3, while a person from the Korangi district died at the same private health facility on October 4, 2022.

He said another person, who was from the Dadu district of Sindh, died due to complications of the dengue fever at Dr Ziauddin Hospital Clifton Karachi, adding that so far 37 people had died due to dengue fever in Karachi, while four had lost lives in Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas and Nawabshah districts.

The official maintained that 386 new cases of dengue were reported in the province during the last 24 hours, of which 314 cases were reported from Karachi, while 49 dengue cases were reported from Hyderabad, 14 from Mirpurkhas, two from Larkana, four from Sukkur and three from Nawabshah Division.

Over 10,000 cases of dengue have been reported so far in Karachi alone, of which 1,429 cases have been reported in the first five days of the current month, the health department official added.

On the other hand, health experts dealing with dengue outbreak in Karachi claimed that number of dengue cases could be ten to twenty times more than the official figures. They added that the number of deaths could also be five times more than that reported by the health officials.

“Over 95 percent health facilities are not reporting dengue cases as well as deaths to the health department. The department is also least interested in getting the accurate figures as they are not doing anything to control the outbreak,” a senior health official at the Civil Hospital Karachi told The News.