Post Graduate Medical Institute (PGMI/LGH) Principal Prof. Dr. Muhammad Al-freed Zafar and Executive Director 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 collectively.
They added that 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 around us as required.
This was stated by Prof. Al-freed Zafar and Prof. Dr. Khalid Mahmood while launching a self-cleaning campaign from their offices in the light of the announcement of Anti-Dengue Day and orders of the Punjab Govt.
They said that the responsibilities of doctors, paramedics regarding dengue start when the patient is brought to the hospital. They further said that the problem of dengue would be solved only through collective efforts. MS LGH Dr. Khalid bin Aslam distributed pamphlets on dengue fever symptoms and precautions among the patients and their relatives in Emergency and OPD of the hospital. He also appealed to the people to play their role for the eradication of dengue along with implementation of Corona SOPs to prove to be a responsible citizen. Assistant Prof. Medicine Dr. Muhammad Maqsood said in his conversation that the initial symptoms of dengue include high fever, severe pain in body 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 of the patient becomes so severe that he feels his bones 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 micro liter 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 with weakened immune system while dengue is caused by the bite of a specific female mosquito.
