KARACHI, Nov 27: Experts at a leading hospital shared figures with the media at a briefing saying that dengue fever had affected the province in much harsher fashion than what the official figures showed, which were too alarming and a record nonetheless.

In a briefing organised by the Aga Khan University Hospital, Dr Faisal Mahmood, an expert in infectious diseases, shared figures in his presentation, in which he said that so far his hospital’s collection points across the province had recorded more than 5,600 confirmed dengue cases, which were 10 times higher than the previous year and 20 times greater than what they recorded in 2010 and 2011.

The provincial dengue surveillance cell has so far recorded close to 5,000 confirmed dengue cases from across the province with around 90 per cent from Karachi alone. Both the provincial and the city figures are already a record since the deadly disease manifested itself with graver intensity since 2005.

According to the cell, the viral disease had claimed 30 lives so far — 24 in Karachi, four in Hyderabad and one each from Thatta and Mirpurkhas.

Given the fact that the cell’s figures included all the government hospitals and most of the key health facilities operated by the private sector, the number given by the Aga Khan Hospital corroborated the claim by certain independent experts that the number of dengue confirmed cases was almost double to the official figures.

Officials in Hyderabad said they had more than 3,000 such cases, much bigger a number than around 600 cases confirmed by the dengue cell.

However, Dr Shakeel Aamir Mullick, who heads the Sindh dengue surveillance cell, later told Dawn that they shared the figures only after getting all the relevant details about patients and their ailments confirmed including their residential addresses.

“We do not just rely on numbers. We prepare our figures with all the relevant details of a patient, including one’s residential address so that we can inform the relevant health authorities to conduct sprays in the victims’ houses and surroundings,” said Dr Mullick.

Dr Mahmood, however, said dengue was largely not a life-threatening disease if it was tackled properly.

“Proper steps taken to contain and control it could enable us to remove sting from its bite,” he said.

He spoke on the symptoms, severity, diagnosis and precautionary measures related to the disease.

He said there was no need of platelets until a patient bleed or certain extraordinary circumstances forced.

Dr Erum Khan of the department of pathology and microbiology spoke on the history of the disease. She said that its evidence in the recorded history was as old as 265AD in China, when it was called as the White Poison.