Blessing in disguise: As mercury drops so does the number of cases

Five-year record has been broken due to lack of preventive measures

ISLAMABAD: The fast-approaching cold weather in Rawalpindi and Islamabad has proved to be a blessing in disguise for locals, who were constantly facing dengue fever threats since June this year.

As the temperature dropped over the last three days in the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi, the health department of the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) observed a sharp decline in dengue fever cases.

“After November 15, it will decline further and naturally by December, disappear from almost all cities,” a senior ICT epidemiologist Dr Muhammad Najeeb Durrani said.

The specialist admitted that five years records of dengue fever in Islamabad were broken due to lack of preventive measures on the part of municipal department of the Capital Development Authority. “The pathetic sanitary system in the capital, mainly in its rural areas, has been a major cause of the spread of the disease,” Durrani further admitted.

Durrani, a member of the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GORAN), told The Express Tribune that the two victims of dengue fever, who lost their lives on Monday, were from among the previously admitted patients.

The health department recorded thousands of dengue fever cases with two casualties in Islamabad during the current season. This compared to a total of 400 dengue cases, both from urban and rural areas, reported in 2015. The virus claimed the life of one person last year.

Dengue fever, a mosquito-borne tropical disease, starts spreading in mid-June onwards and becomes most dangerous in the coming months until November 15, every year,” Durrani said.

Mosquitoes usually disappear when cold weather comes, but don’t go away for good. They have many survival tactics, he warned, adding people, particularly from rural areas, must continue to take precautionary measures till December when the mosquitos’ biting capacity becomes fragile.

Meanwhile, another senior official of the ICT health department has alleged that the CDA’s senior officials totally ignored repeated warnings about the absence of a reasonable sanitation system in rural Islamabad.

According to the official, the lack of a proper collection system of municipal solid waste and garbage dumped on the streets has been playing havoc with the health of people.

The mayor of Islamabad, Sheikh Anser Aziz was not available on the phone for comments on the sanitation issues. However, a senior official of the sanitation department said solid waste dumps and garbage had no relevance with the spread of dengue virus in the rural areas.  “It is a water-borne disease and has nothing to do with municipal solid waste,” he insisted. The official, requesting anonymity, told The Express Tribune that his department has taken effective measures to address the problem.

He admitted union councils such as Ali Pur Frash, Khana Kak ,Khana Dak  Sohan , Chak Shehzad, Tarlai Kalan and Iqbal Town were most affected due to poor sanitation arrangements. However, he claimed cleaning of dengue larva was conducted by staff in those affected union councils. At the same time, the official concluded that the lack of required funds was hindering the execution of plans to streamline sanitation systems in rural areas.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 10^th, 2016.