LAHORE/FAISALABAD: Two more children died of diphtheria at the Children’s Hospital, raising the death toll at the facility to 19 during the last two months or so.

Reports said eight-year-old Nimra and nine-year-old Furqan were the fresh victims of the disease.

They were shifted to the hospital with severe diphtheria complications and could not survive despite treatment.

The hospital’s Medical Director Dr Ehsan Waheed Rathore said one child succumbed to the disease on Saturday, while the other died on Monday.

He said diphtheria had so far claimed lives of 19 children who were brought to the hospital. He said the death toll of the disease increased during the winter.Meanwhile, Faisalabad’s Allied Hospital, where so far nine children who were suspected patients of diphtheria have died, is still without anti-diphtheria serum (ADS), but the Punjab government is ignoring requests for the provision of the life saving drug to the facility.

Officials of the Vaccine Preventable Diseases (VBD), Lahore, instead of making arrangements for the provision of the ADS on an emergency basis, have asked the hospital administration to look for it in the local market.

However, the ADS vials were also not available in the local market.

The Young Doctors Association president of Children Hospital, Lahore, Dr Saud, said so far at least 30 children across Punjab had fallen victim to diphtheria and the number of deaths could increase as thousands of children had been left without vaccine cover in the province.

Allied Hospital’s requests for supply of life-saving drug being ignored

During 2015, at least nine children who were suspected diphtheria patients have died in the paediatric ward of the Allied Hospital. Their samples had been sent to the National Institute of Health (NIH), Islamabad, and the reports were still awaited.

On Oct 30 last, the hospital administration had written a letter titled “Provision of anti-diphtheria serum” to the Director General Health Services (DGHS), Lahore, for provision of ADS on an emergency basis.

Finding no response, the hospital wrote another letter to the DGHS on Nov 3 last citing influx of suspected diphtheria patients at the hospital from different areas, seeking provision of at least 100 ADS injections urgently. Increase in number of such patients forced Dr Masooma Sardar, the focal person for infectious diseases at the Allied Hospital, to contact the officials concerned for ADS vials but to no avail.

She wrote a letter to Punjab Medical College (PMC) principal, who is also the chief executive officer of the hospital, informing him of the situation.

She also contacted various officials of the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) and VBD for the serum vials. She said that Dr Naeem, the VBD store in charge, was also contacted who said no stock of the drug was available with the DGHS and that arrangements for its purchase had yet to be initiated. She was told that the Allied Hospital management could explore private market, the letter said.

Deputy drug controller (DDC) of the hospital said ADS was also not available in the market.

On Nov 5, DDC sent a letter to the hospital administration informing it that Shaukat Mustafa, the drug controller of the Children Hospital, Lahore, had said there were no ADS shots at the facility.

Similarly, Ghulam Mohayyudin, the DGHS purchase officer said as the order for ADS supply had been placed to a firm which was not registered in Pakistan, it would take about 10-12 days to make the drug available here.

The drug was also not available with the chief pharmacist of the Lady Reading Hospital, Peshawar, and WHO office, the DDC said.

A doctor at the Allied Hospital requesting anonymity said ADS had not been available at the facility since January 2013, when first suspected cases of diphtheria were reported in Faisalabad and Lahore.

Dr Saud said the government had been trying to conceal the facts related to diphtheria epidemic as only deaths at the Allied and the Children hospitals had been reported.

“How it was possible that not even a single suspected patient of diphtheria was brought to any other hospital of Punjab,” he wondered. He apprehended that diphtheria could cause a heavy loss as it was an infectious disease and could be controlled only through timely vaccination.

He said the government had to import ADS vials from Afghanistan and Croatia. He said given the prevailing situation, the EPI plan must also be reviewed and all children above five years must be administered the ADS dose.

Published in Dawn, December 22nd, 2015