Symposium: Dengue can be controlled through prevention, cure

ISLAMABAD:

Death due to dengue can be reduced to zero with proper cure and treatment, Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Medical University (SZABMU), Vice Chancellor, Dr Javed Akram said on Thursday.

“Dengue is not fatal, it is potentially a curable disease and deaths due to dengue could be negligence,” he said addressing a symposium.   Dengue Expert Advisory Group (DEAG) Islamabad chapter has been established in PIMS to help eradicate the disease and enhancing the capacity of medical staff.

He said that could not be completely eradicated even in countries like Singapore, however, the mortality rate can be reduced to zero.  He said the World Health Organisation (WHO) has developed guidelines for clinical case management of dengue fever, which will be revived soon with new data.

Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences Associate Professor of Medicine Dr Shajee Ahmad Siddiqui said that an estimated 2.5 billion people, 40 per cent of the world’s population, live in over 100 endemic countries and areas where dengue viruses can be transmitted.

He said about half of the world lives in ‘hot zone’ with more than one-third of the world’s population living in areas at risk for transmission. Dengue infection, he said, was a leading cause of illness and death in the tropics and subtropics. As many as 100 million people are infected yearly.

Additional Director PIMS Dr Ayesha Isani Majeed, while presenting radiological findings of dengue fever, said that dengue was a widespread mosquito-borne infection, which in recent years had become a major health concern. She said symptomatic dengue virus infections can present with a wide range of clinical manifestations, from a mild febrile illness to a life-threatening shock syndrome.

“Both viral and host factors are thought to contribute to the manifestations of disease in each infected,” Dr Issani said and added that it was important to understand its burden on health care, morbidity and mortality.

She said early diagnosis and suspicion of DF in primary care might reduce the complications if handled properly. “We must understand the depth of the problem in terms of its transmission, clinical presentation, diagnosis, management and prevention,” she said.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 11^th, 2016.