A senior doctor, at the HFH told The Express Tribune that sending samples to Lahore and waiting for the results usually took three to
four days. PHOTO: AGHA MEHROZ/EXPRESS
As per information obtained by The Express Tribune, blood samples of 45 patients were sent for testing. Reports of these tests suggested that 41 of them were suffering from dengue fever. Of these, 13 patients came from Rawalpindi’s urban areas, one from the rural areas, one was from Attock, one was from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, and 25 were from Islamabad.
Currently, there are around 190 dengue patients admitted in the three allied hospitals in Rawalpindi. Among them, 94 are under treatment at the Holy Family Hospital, 80 at the Benazir Bhutto Hospital, and 16 in District Headquarters Hospital.
Blood reports of around 84 suspected dengue patients at the three hospitals are still awaited.
Alarming trend
Of the 190 patients currently admitted in Rawalpindi’s hospitals, most are from Islamabad with as many as 115 hailing from the capital.
Around 79 are from Rawalpindi, while two are from other cities in Punjab, and two patients hail from outside the Punjab.
The total number of dengue fever cases reported in the region this year have so far jumped to 1,051.
Of these, 600 cases were reported from different areas of Islamabad.
Around 429 cases were reported from different areas of Rawalpindi including 219 cases from Rawal Town, 79 from Potohar Town, 37 from Chaklala Cantonment Board, and 94 in Rawalpindi Cantonment Board.
Around 26 cases have been reported from Azad Jammu Kashmir and K-P.
Given the alarming situation in Islamabad, the Punjab health department and Rawalpindi city district government have taken up the issue with Islamabad’s mayor Sheikh Anser Aziz.
Health officials told Aziz that a lot more needed to be done to control the outbreak of dengue in the capital.
Reportedly, inadequate facilities for dengue patients at public hospitals in Islamabad had forced patients to visit the hospitals in Rawalpindi.
Earlier in the week, the health department had allowed allied hospitals in Rawalpindi to carry out polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests to determine different types of fever induced by the virus.
The decision has been taken to save time in treating dengue fever patients since doctors previously had to dispatch blood samples to labs in Lahore for the tests.
A senior doctor, at the HFH told The Express Tribune that sending samples to Lahore and waiting for the results usually took three to
four days.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 10th, 2016.
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