Dealing with dengue: DCO orders early spray

Health officials lock Vehari DHQ wards, patients transferred to Lahore.

MULTAN:

Health officials have been ordered to ensure an early spray to guard against the Dengue virus in the district. Meanwhile, in Vehari, the DHQ hospital administration has locked the Dengue ward.

Patients from Vehari are being sent to Lahore and Multan’s Nishtar Hospital. People’s colony resident’s 18-year-old Sadia and 40-year-old Hussain were brought to DHQ hospital in Vehari on Wednesday and both tested positive for the Dengue virus. However, both patients were transferred to Nishtar Hospital Multan due to a lack of doctors on duty at the DHQ hospital. Health officials said that a large number of patients had yet to be registered in the district.

“We have only been counting the people who have come into the hospital but several people in the villages have been affected,” said a Health Department official Raza Qayyum.

Multan district coordination officer Zahid Akhtar Zaman directed health officials to ensure an early spray for the eradication of dengue virus in the district.

Presiding over a meeting, the DCO directed executive district officer (EDO) Health Dr Inaamul Haq to ensure timely steps to stop the possible spread of the virus in the district.

EDO Dr Inaamul Haq said that the Health department had issued a schedule for the spray.

He disclosed that 22 cases of dengue virus had been reported in Multan and that all the patients were recovering.  The DCO also reviewed arrangements for the polio vaccination campaign which is to begin from September 19. Hospital officials in Vehari and other smaller tehsils have requested added funds to cope with the dengue outbreak in their respective areas.



Published in The Express Tribune, September 8^th, 2011.