Malaria rises as dengue ebbs in K-P

Lakki Marwat carries greatest burden of disease with 1,117 cases

PESHAWAR:

With the start of harsh winter across Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P), dengue has finally died down after making lives miserable for the local residents for several months, but now it has been replaced by malaria.

Official sources told The Express Tribune that in the past two months around 4,419 cases of malaria have been recorded.

They said that Lakki Marwat district carries the greatest burden of the disease with 1,117 cases reported in public hospitals.

It may be mentioned here that dengue gripped the entire province for the past several months and as per the official record 22,000 cases were reported. Dengue claimed 18 lives.

These figures were highly contradicted by locals who claimed that the figures could be four-time higher than the official data as most patients didn’t reach public or private hospitals and consulted private clinics where no record is maintained.

“Currently there are only six patients under treatment at the hospitals. While 23 new cases of dengue have been reported,” said an official, adding that the health department focused mainly on dengue but there is no system in place to check the spread of malaria — another vector-borne disease.

As far as malaria is concerned, 820 cases were reported in Charsadda, 754 in Hangu, 509 in Bannu, 363 in Dir Lower, 321 in Malakand, 178 in Shangla and 125 in Buner.

By the same token, some districts were less affected by malaria including Peshawar with 46 cases, Torghar 38 cases and Khyber 30 cases.

In five districts of the province namely Koi Palas, Waziristan Lower, Waziristan Upper, Abbotabad and Manshera no cases was reported.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 12^th, 2022.