Sindh’s death toll crosses 40 as five more fall victim to dengue

There seems to be no sign of a let-up in deaths due to the dengue virus in Sindh, as five more people have been killed due to complications resulting from the fever caused by the mosquito-borne disease, officials said on Saturday.“Four people, including two women, have died in Karachi due to dengue fever and its complications, while a man from the Umerkot area of Tharparkar died due to complications of the vector-borne illness at a public health facility in Hyderabad,” an official of the Sindh Dengue Prevention & Control Programme told The News.According to officials, Karachi’s dengue death toll this year has hit 39 while the total number of people killed by the disease in the province has reached 41. They said that public and private hospitals continue to get dengue patients in large numbers from different parts of the city.Sindh Health Department officials said that 24-year-old Hira, a resident of Surjani Town, was taken to the Ziauddin Hospital, where she succumbed to complications resulting from dengue fever, while 74-year-old Rafia, a resident of Gulshan-e-Iqbal, also died due to complications of the vector-borne disease at the same hospital.They said that 60-year-old Abdur Rafay, a resident of Shah Faisal Colony who was undergoing treatment at the Memon Medical Institute since the past few days, died due to dengue shock syndrome, adding that he had died the night before but his death was reported to the health department the following day.Similarly, added the health officials, 40-year-old Muhammad Shahzad, a resident of Korangi who was getting treatment at the same hospital, also died the night before, while a middle-aged labourer from Umerkot died at the Civil Hospital Hyderabad due to complications of dengue fever.Officials of the Sindh Dengue Prevention & Control Programme said that 187 people have tested positive for dengue fever during the past 24 hours in Karachi alone, adding that so far this year 4,541 people have been diagnosed with the disease in the city.The provincial health department has constituted a four-member committee to investigate the deaths at the Ziauddin Hospital, as the health facility has reported several deaths due to the mosquito-borne illness after being admitted there.Health Secretary Zahid Ali Abbasi said that a surveillance team of the health department has been tasked with investigating the growing number of deaths at a private health facility in the city, adding that measures are being taken to overcome the dengue fever outbreak in the city.A day earlier, the province’s health officials had confirmed the death of a 42-year-old man at a private hospital due to complications resulting from dengue fever. “Muhammad Shahid, 42, a resident of Liaquatabad, was taken to a private hospital in North Nazimabad, where he was diagnosed with dengue fever. The patient died due to complications of the disease,” said an official of the health department.Health officials and experts claim that more than 100,000 people have been affected by dengue fever this year, saying that the death toll due to the vector-borne viral disease may be much higher than the official figures.Health expert Prof Tahir Shamsi says that the number of dengue patients is between 50,000 to 60,000 while clinical microbiologist Dr Farhan Essa claims that the number is over 100,000.

from The News International - Karachi https://ift.tt/35sanmh