An apple a day: Juice supplies run short due to dengue panic

Doctor says juice is healthy, but won’t cure disease.

LAHORE:

The city’s supply of apple juice has run short, as many people are convinced it helps ward off dengue fever.

Muhammad Hafeez, who manages a general store on Davis Road, said demand for apple juice had more than doubled since the dengue outbreak. “We used to order 40 juice cartons for one week, but we’ve been running out of stock in three days,” he said. “The juice company we depend most on is finding it difficult to supply extra cartons. Many shops have the same problem.”

School teacher Tariq Habib, 45, came into the store to buy apple juice for his ailing daughter. “There is no substitute for fresh juice but I’m having trouble running the juicer at home because of load shedding,” he said.

Daud Ahmad, who is in charge of the Cakes and Bakes warehouse, said that sales of apple juice at their outlets in Lahore had gone up by 70 per cent. “The shops that sold two cartons a week are now asking for six cartons a week. We are having difficulty finding enough supply.” Asim Chaudhry, assistant sales manager at Shezan, said they were also selling more of their apple juice drink.

“We are getting big orders from stores and shops,” he said, adding that he had consumed a lot of apple juice himself while he was down with dengue for two weeks.

Professor Mahmood Shaukat, registrar at King Edward Medical University, said apple juice was a nutritious food but it couldn’t cure the disease.

“All fresh fruit juices are good but there is no evidence that it cures dengue,” he said. “I’m astonished at how people get an anonymous SMS and believe it just like that. Some people are dying for sugarcane juice, some are after papaya, some after apple.”

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