Staff Reporter
Islamabad
Special Assistant to Prime Minister on National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination Dr. Zafar Mirza has said that federal government was in coordination with provinces to curb dengue outbreak and concerted efforts were being made to check it. Addressing a press conference here on Sunday, Dr. Zafar Mirza said Dengue Control Operational Center has been set- up in Islamabad which would daily review the dengue related situation across the country review steps to control it.
He said two hotlines with contact numbers (051-9212601 and 9216890) would work round the clock and expert doctors would respond to the dengue related queries to general public. The Special Assistant said there were 10,013 dengue patients at present in the country out of which 2,363 were in Punjab, 2,258 in Sindh, 1,814 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 1,772 in Balochistan. In past, there had been double patients as compared to this figure but our whole concentration at present was to check its outbreak rather than doing politics.
During the last 48 hours, maximum patients suffering from dengue were identified and this number may increase in coming 7-10 days. It was our responsibility to suggest preventive measures to the people and special hotlines have been set up for the same, he said adding that 70 percent dengue patients in Punjab reported from Potohar region.
Dr. Zafar Iqbal Mirza said special study or research would be conducted in the coming days to find out why dengue spread out in this region. He said an Emergency Centre had been established at National Institute of Health (NIH) ten days before and the entire statistics, also available on NIH website, were being compiled there daily basis.
Keeping in view the possible increase in number of dengue patients, the Special Assistant to Prime Minister said owners of private hospitals in Islamabad were contacted who ensured to provide a total of 1000 beds in their hospitals in case of capacity issue in the government hospitals.
