The dengue situation in Karachi has gotten bad to worse as three people have lost their lives from the disease on the same day taking the death toll to 30 in September. Simultaneously, 297 more cases reported in last 24 hours in the city. 3,843 dengue patients in total have been admitted to the hospital this month.
Data released by the Sindh health department earlier showed a spike in dengue fever cases as their numbers doubled in just two days. Majority of these cases were reported at hospitals located in district East (116) followed by healthcare facilities in Korangi (107), Central (72), South (61), Malir (26), West (12) and Keamari (nine). A total of 2,145 cases of dengue fever cases were reported in Karachi this month; East (842) followed by healthcare facilities in (431), South (377), Korangi (286), Malir (93), Keamari (64) and West (52).
In the rest of Sindh, 16 cases were reported in Hyderabad division, one in Larkana division, two in Sukkur division and four in Shaheed Benazirabad division.A health department official explained that most dengue patients had mild illness and they either reported at private clinics or outpatient departments of hospitals.“But, hospitals do not maintain proper records of their OPD patients while family physicians as well as city’s laboratories under the currently adopted protocol are not required to share their data. Hence, the official figures don’t reflect the ground reality as only severe dengue cases require admission,” the official said.
Experts believe the current number of dengue fever cases might be five times higher than what is being reported by the health department. The spike in dengue cases in the Lahore city showed no significant decline rather, the city is witnessing a sharp surge in the cases. As per reports, 108 news dengue cases have been reported in a single day in the city and the number of dengue fever patients has risen to 225, claiming one death due to dengue fever.
In the last 24 hours, dengue larvae were recovered from 963 different places in the city. It is to be noted here that dengue virus, gradually, has turned into an epidemic in Capital Provincial, although municipal authorities have been carrying out fumigation campaigns in order to eliminate dengue from the city and would continue this till December, but desired results have not been yielded yet.
