5,000 suspected Dengue fever cases reported across Pakistan

The government in Pakistan's eastern Punjab province Wednesday said it is struggling to control a growing Dengue fever epidemic as health officials said that suspected cases of dengue fever have now reached nearly 5000. Doctors in Lahore, the capital of Punjab, said that three more people died in the city on Wednesday, taking death toll from Dengue fever to 17 in the past two months. Lahore is the most affected city with over 4,000 suspected cases. Head of Lahore's Mayo hospital, Dr Zahid Pervez, said that nearly 800 people visited his hospital on Wednesday for test of the Dengue virus, adding that only 10 to 15 percent of the patients are tested positive. He said many people believe that they are suffering from Dengue fever because of widespread panic in Lahore, the city under the grip of the epidemic. Chief Minister of Punjab province, Shahbaz Sharif, told a news conference in Lahore on Wednesday that his government has ordered the urgent import of 150 machines from Germany, latest technology from Britain and medicines from India to deal with the fast increasing number of patients. He instructed all private hospitals to provide free treatment to the affected people or face action. The Punjab government also closed all universities in the province for ten days a day after all schools were closed for same period following suspected cases reported among the students. Anti- mosquitoes spray has been ordered in all educational institutions during the 10-day holidays. The institutions were closed as a precautionary measure and to prevent the exposure of children to the dengue virus, an official statement said. On the instructions of Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani, a Sri Lankan medical team with medicines and equipment arrived in Pakistan to help the Government of Punjab to fight out Dengue epidemic, a statement from the PM office said. The Punjab government has announced an emergency in hospitals and appealed to private healthcare facilities and military hospitals to help it in dealing with the outbreak. Army has also set up separate medical camps to help the civilian hospitals to deal with the crisis. The government has also established a Federal Dengue Monitoring Cell in Islamabad to help counter the spread of the virus in the capital, officials said. The government on Monday established a Federal Dengue Monitoring Cell at the Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) to help counter the spread of the virus in Islamabad. The cell will monitor, on a daily basis, all activities going on in the capital regarding prevention and control of the disease in public hospitals. It will also ensure the availability of essential medicines at all public health institutions in rural and urban areas of the capital. So far 40 confirmed cases of dengue have been reported in Islamabad, in private and government hospitals, doctors and local media reported. Also in southern Sindh province, a total of 211 cases have been confirmed so far. Coordinator Dengue Control Cell Sindh Dr Shakeel Mullick said that from January 1 to September 10, 195 dengue cases were reported to the cell by government and private hospitals in Sindh. These included 169 in Karachi and 26 in other parts of the province. However, he said that there has been only "one death" related to dengue this year in Karachi in February this year. Three deaths and 25 suspected cases have been confirmed while several hundreds have been put under surveillance in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, according to provincial health officials.