Dengue season

Local resources were deployed in a timely manner and there has been no repeat of last year’s disaster in Swat Valley.

Dengue fever is once again wreaking havoc, and the Swat Valley is suffering a severe outbreak for the second year running. Until last year, dengue was relatively rare in Swat, and when it struck the administration was ill-prepared and came close to being completely overwhelmed with cases. At one point there were between 200 and 300 cases a day being admitted, but this year the numbers are smaller though the outbreak is sustained. Thus far the outbreak has been restricted to a part of Mingora and Saidu Sharif, and seems that the local administration has been successful in limiting the impact of dengue this year. The first case was reported on June 3 and by June 5 the local dengue cell formed after the outbreak in 2013 was reactivated by the district health office.

Dengue is an opportunistic disease and in part the outbreak in Swat last year was due to the success of fighting it in other parts of the country. The mosquitoes that carry dengue moved on, looking for places that were unprepared and where conditions were favourable for breeding. Swat suited them well, and they wreaked havoc in 2013. Now there are locally constituted dengue teams, public awareness has been raised by religious scholars that have cooperated closely with the administration and indoor residual spray has been used to kill off the dengue larvae. As has been amply demonstrated across the country dengue can be effectively battled. The technologies and resources are readily available and easy to apply for local administrations. The fight against dengue fever does not require rocket science. Nobody has died in the Swat Valley as a result of dengue fever this year. Local resources were deployed in a timely manner and there has been no repeat of last year’s disaster. The Swat Valley may have provided an object lesson in how to get it right that other — far larger and wealthier — administrations would do well to note.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 23^rd, 2014.

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