PESHAWAR: With the number of dengue cases coming to over 6,000 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa this year, the World Health Organisation is providing technical assistance to the health department to prevent the outbreak of the mosquito-borne disease next year.

“We are collaborating with the health department to stop the dengue incidence from reaching epidemic proportions next year. Hopefully, the current outbreak will be contained by Nov 20. Thereafter, we will train doctors on vector control to prevent dengue outbreak next year,” Dr Saeed Akbar Khan, head of the WHO’s sub-office Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, told Dawn.

Dr Saeed said the WHO recently sent provincial focal person for dengue control Dr Ahmad Tariq to Amman, Jordan, for training in the early detection of outbreak and response.

Official says training of doctors on cards

He said Dr Tariq would later train others as part of efforts to stop high dengue incidence in future.

“The training for dengue case management is also in the pipeline. In 2017, the WHO provided training to the staff of district and teaching hospitals, so mortality was not there,” he said.

The WHO staff member said the launch of awareness campaigns for the community was also part of the strategy.

Dr Saeed said some refreshment allowance would be provided to field workers busy with larvicidal activities.

He said the trained personnel would help the department strengthen the early disease warning system and issue an alert in case of outbreak.

“Besides dengue, the training will also help the health department take preventive measures against most diseases,” he said.

Sources in the health department claimed that the dengue-related situation was under control as only 6,600 cases had been recorded in the province in the current year compared with 10,000 in 2017 when the disease claimed around 70 lives.

This year, no death by dengue has been registered.

The sources said most of 40,000 dengue cases were reported in Rawalpindi and Islamabad. They said more than 50 people had died of dengue countrywide, mostly in twin cities.

The health department has also planned to hire the services of entomologists to take measures for vector control.

“We need entomologists to map the area, where mosquitoes are present and are most likely to transmit disease,” an official said.

Sources said the WHO had long been asking the government to take preventive steps against dengue, including public awareness, and that the health department had agreed to work on dengue preventive strategy and ensure that outbreaks don’t occur in future.

They said the health agency had donated equipment and investigation kits and distributed printed materials to increase public awareness of preventive measures against dengue.

The sources said the health department had established 20 bedded isolation wards in every district hospital as part of the national action plan in collaboration with the WHO.

They said the department had been asking others to join hands to check dengue’s spread.

The sources said rapid and unplanned urbanisation, lack of sanitation, and climate change were to blame for surge in dengue incidence.

They said the weather conditions in the region remained suitable for the spread of the infection, especially the growth of aedes aegypti, the mosquito, which caused dengue fever.

Published in Dawn, November 3rd, 2019