Rising numbers: Two more patients take dengue cases to 35

Scouts conduct door-to-door awareness campaign, destroy mosquito larvae from hundreds of houses.

MINGORA:

The number of dengue patients in Swat rose to 35 on Thursday as two more patients were brought to Saidu Teaching Hospital.

According to the focal person of the hospital’s dengue unit, Roshan Ali, 12-year-old Muhammad Idrees and 25-year-old Zainab Bibi tested positive for the virus and were admitted. Both patients are from Amankot which is among the most dengue-affected areas this year.

“Six patients, including two men and four women, are hospitalised, while 29 patients have been discharged after recovering,” Roshan added.

Elimination drive

‘No more Dengue’ is the slogan of volunteers from the Swat Scouts Open Group who have joined hands with the district administration to eliminate the potentially fatal virus from the district.

To keep the dengue virus from spreading to other parts of Swat, the scouts go from door to door to create awareness among the people about the virus: how it is spread, its symptoms, precautionary measures as well as methods of eliminating the mosquito.

“We started from Skha Cheena, the area in which a majority of the infected patients reside,” said Akhtar Ali, the group leader of the scouts. Group members use magnifying glasses to look for larvae in water containers and have eliminated them from hundreds of houses.

Dengue surfaced in Swat for the first time last year when an outbreak claimed 37 lives. However, unofficial reports put that number closer to 60.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 25^th, 2014.