Irfan Aligi
Preparations are in pipeline for an exigent awareness campaign about control of dengue pandemic in Karachi and in this regard, Sindh’s bureaucracy under the aegis of Sindh Chief Secretary (CS) has tightened their belts.
According to details, Sindh CS Mumtaz Ali Shah chaired a meeting at his office and the meeting was attended by Sindh Information Secretary Ahmed Bux Narejo, Karachi Commissioner Iftikhar Shallwani, Sindh Health Secretary Saeed Ahmed Awan, Sindh Solid Waste Management Board’s managing Director, Karachi Metropolitan Commissioner and medical experts from the Aga Khan University Hospital.
On Friday, a dengue-affected Hazoor Bux had died at a private hospital in Karachi where he was admitted since past four days. In addition, Sindh Health Ministry and Dengue Surveillance is reluctant to verify deaths of 21 from dengue in Karachi. However, these deaths from dengue alarmed the Sindh’s bureaucracy and they sit together and started devising a composite strategy to control the spread of dengue, which has now become lethal disease.
Hence, CS summoned an exigent meeting in his office and instructed Sindh Health Secretary to take steps for making the awareness campaign success.
CS assured that the government would fully facilitate the Dengue Control Programme and fumigation teams would be increased by three more in each district, he informed.
The meeting was informed that till date, a total of 37551 cases of dengue affected people reported in a year time of which 10819 in Islamabad, 8173 in Punjab and 7498 in Sindh respectively.
In Sindh, the highest numbers of dengue affected people were from Karachi as they were 7040 and in Sindh almost 20 dengue affected patients have died so far.
