A mother comforts her son who is suffering from dengue fever at a local hospital in Rawalpindi. — Photo by AP

KARACHI: The Sindh government has made elaborate arrangements for timely diagnosis and free of cost treatment of dengue patients in the province, said Health Minister Dr Saghir Ahmed.

Addressing a meeting of doctors from both private and public sector hospitals, he said most dengue fever cases reported this year were of a routine nature.

“This is because the virus has lost its severity in Sindh. However, it continues to persist in the environment,” he said.

He said it was encouraging that there was no unusual rise in the incidence of the disease despite intense monsoon in recent past.

The minister attributed this to proper planning of the department and the concerned agencies during past three years.

He said proper and regular fumigation generally helped contain the spread of the virus.

“We also managed to educate citizens and convinced them to resort to necessary preventive measures,” he said.

The minister said the provincial health department and allied bodies were not complacent and fumigation of each and every area reported to have had even a single case of dengue fever was immediately ensured.

Under a renewed strategy, an area of 1,500 meters around stagnant water pools and garbage dumps was sprayed in a manner that it penetrated into a minimum depth of 300 feet and killed the mosquitoes as well as the larvae.

The minister said that in view of the outbreak in the Punjab, the Sindh government had entered into active collaboration with all concerned stakeholders.

“Since there can be no room for complacency the health department has arranged cell separators at its different hospitals so as to help easy availability of mega units,” he said.

The minister regretted that many of the private hospitals were not cooperating with the Dengue Surveillance Cell responsible for the compilation of data.

He urged the administrations of these hospitals to cooperate with the government as otherwise necessary action would be taken against them.

Around 675 cases of dengue fever were reported in the province with 11 deaths till October 17.