LAHORE: Dengue virus claimed two more lives in Punjab on Friday, raising the number of deaths in the province from the deadly disease to seven, sources told DawnNews.

Meanwhile, the government of Punjab has announced an awareness walk as part of the provincial government’s anti-dengue campaign to make dengue prevention day successful.

Sources told DawnNews that Ibrahim, 30, a resident of Lahore who was already a patient at Mayo hospital, died due to dengue on Friday. The other death reported was of a person named Muhammad Rauf, a patient at Holy Family hospital in Rawalpindi.

In the last 24 hours, 59 cases of dengue had been tested positive in the province, out of which 35 and 19 belong to Lahore and Rawalpindi, respectively.

Moreover, Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah Khan in a meeting of the Central Response Committee finalised the preparations for dengue prevention day, scheduled for Nov 3, under his own guidance.

Sanaullah further emphasised that greater awareness among citizens was necessary for elimination of the life-threatening disease.

On Tuesday, 42 more patients tested positive for the virus. Out of these, 28 were reported in Lahore.

Yesterday, a nine-year-old girl died due to dengue. Children’s Hospital Dean Prof Dr Masood Sadiq told Dawn it was not humanly possible to diagnose a large number of young patients visiting the health facility with high temperature for dengue disease.