Fever returns: Five cases of dengue reported from Lower Dir
Residents say govt did not assist in taking precautionary steps
Residents say govt did not assist in taking precautionary steps
LOWER DIR:
Five cases of dengue fever were reported in Lower Dir on Thursday and officials from District Headquarters Hospital fear more people will fall prey to the disease since its recent outbreak in nearby Swat.
Another official from the hospital said four patients were residents of Lower Dir itself while one of them had come recently from Karachi. “Their blood samples revealed they had contracted dengue fever and since then they have been kept isolated at the hospital,” he said.
Blame game
Representatives from a non-governmental organisation (NGO) which had assisted the government in combating the disease in the province said the areas from where the patients had been brought in had been thoroughly checked for sanitation.
Read: Dengue strikes again
“The area had been thoroughly fumigated,” they said. However, residents from several areas of Lower Dir said the government had not taken any steps for dengue prevention. “We reached out to the government for precautionary steps many times but all our requests fell on deaf ears,” they said.
In the past
At least 13 cases of dengue fever were reported from Swat this year, however, none of them had proved to be fatal. The figure showed a sharp decline from 2014 where according to the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa health department’s data, 98% of around 200 people affected by dengue fever in K-P were from Swat alone. In 2013, 9,038 out of 11,600 people affected by the deadly virus were residents of Swat.
Read: Getting stung: 13th dengue case reported in Swat
In 2015, around 260 people from Mansehra, Kohistan, Haripur, Battagram and Abbottabad were diagnosed with dengue fever and three out of them also succumbed to the deadly virus.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 25th, 2015.
Five cases of dengue fever were reported in Lower Dir on Thursday and officials from District Headquarters Hospital fear more people will fall prey to the disease since its recent outbreak in nearby Swat.
Another official from the hospital said four patients were residents of Lower Dir itself while one of them had come recently from Karachi. “Their blood samples revealed they had contracted dengue fever and since then they have been kept isolated at the hospital,” he said.
Blame game
Representatives from a non-governmental organisation (NGO) which had assisted the government in combating the disease in the province said the areas from where the patients had been brought in had been thoroughly checked for sanitation.
Read: Dengue strikes again
“The area had been thoroughly fumigated,” they said. However, residents from several areas of Lower Dir said the government had not taken any steps for dengue prevention. “We reached out to the government for precautionary steps many times but all our requests fell on deaf ears,” they said.
In the past
At least 13 cases of dengue fever were reported from Swat this year, however, none of them had proved to be fatal. The figure showed a sharp decline from 2014 where according to the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa health department’s data, 98% of around 200 people affected by dengue fever in K-P were from Swat alone. In 2013, 9,038 out of 11,600 people affected by the deadly virus were residents of Swat.
Read: Getting stung: 13th dengue case reported in Swat
In 2015, around 260 people from Mansehra, Kohistan, Haripur, Battagram and Abbottabad were diagnosed with dengue fever and three out of them also succumbed to the deadly virus.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 25th, 2015.