Is Tehkal a ground zero for dengue virus in Peshawar?

Mapping exercise by DRU shows most and least affected areas of Peshawar

PESHAWAR: Health officials in Peshawar believe that this year the dengue outbreak started off in the Tehkal neighbourhood of the provincial capital spreading to other parts of the district.

This was revealed after the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) health department mapped the Peshawar district to determine the areas where most dengue virus cases have been reported. The list will be updated on a daily basis.

The mapping exercise, which was completed on September 6, marked the Tehkal area in red. Officials at the Dengue Response Unit (DRU) explained that this was because the neighbourhood was believed to be the area from where the virus seemed to have travelled to other parts of the provincial capital.

Officials said that the mapping exercise was conducted to give them a clearer picture of exactly where the viral infection existed.



The first map produced by the exercise showed that over 90 per cent of the cases were reported from areas in the centre west of the city — from East, towards the West, while travelling from the Cantonment towards Hayatabad.

“Our staffers did something really hard, but this is what will help us not only in the current situation but in the future as well since we will be focusing on the identified areas to target eggs rather than fumigating the entire district,” a senior health official said.

The official, who was reluctant to share his name for several reasons, stated that initially, cases were reported from Union Councils (UC) 38, 39 and 40 in Tehkal.

Other DRU officials also confirmed a number of dengue cases which were reported from other parts of the city but were tied to the three union councils of Tehkal in one way or the other.

“This is what people need to understand that it has not spread across the district but [only restricted to] a few UCs,” Dr Iftikharuddin, a member of the DRU and an assistant professor for community medicines at the Bacha Khan Medical College in Mardan, told The Express Tribune.

Noting that there are around 97 union councils in Peshawar district but cases were only reported from around five UCs, he said that “scattered cases have travel history”.

“One man took his car for maintenance to a workshop in Tehkal and got infected,” he explained, adding that infected man fell ill after returning home.

“Now this does not mean the virus has reached Hayatabad. Nevertheless, we have highlighted Hayatabad [in the map] too,” he said.

Dr Iftikharuddin stated that they were also monitoring movements of individual cases and mapping these routes.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 9^th, 2017.