ISLAMABAD: The federal and Rawalpindi health departments have decided to come together to devise a collective strategy against the dengue virus, instead of getting into a blame game like they did last year about whether the virus had come to Islamabad from Rawalpindi or the other way around.

This was announced by the Head of the Dengue Expert Advisory Group (DEAG) and Vice Chancellor of the Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Medical University at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) Dr Javed Akram at an awareness seminar hosted by DEAG on Wednesday.

DEAG was established on directives of the Chief Minister Punjab in 2011 for chalking out a strategy for the eradication of dengue from Punjab.

Dr Akram reminded those attending that the health departments of Punjab had said last year that the virus had travelled from water bodies near I.J. Principal Road all the way to Rawalpindi. The health authorities in Islamabad had countered that dengue had spread because of the open sewerage system, warehouses and unplanned development in the garrison city and that there were more water bodies in Rawalpindi than in Islamabad.

Dengue Expert Advisory Group concludes the virus cannot be eradicated, only solution is controlling mortality rates

“Both the cities are vulnerable to dengue because of the many water bodies though dengue mosquitoes can thrive better in Islamabad because of higher humidity,” the doctor said.

DEAG has concluded, he said, that the virus cannot be eradicated because it has spread through 132 countries. The only solution is to bring down the mortality rate of the illness.

“Last year in Thailand, 58,000 dengue cases were reported and of these only one patient had died. A dengue patient can be cured if treated within four days, otherwise the case becomes complicated,” he added.

Dr Akram said focus will now be shifted on training doctors, nurses and other medical staff in treating the virus.

Prof Dr Jamal Zafar from Pims Department of General Medicine told the seminar that 1,058 dengue patients had been admitted to Pims last year and general practitioner Dr Rizwan Kazi said Pims was well equipped to deal with cases of the virus and that mortality rates can be brought down if patients are treated on time.

Dr Waseem Khawaja suggested precautionary measures, such as wearing long sleeves and using mosquito repellents, to minimise the odds of contracting the virus.

Participants were briefed about dengue, Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever and Dengue Shock Syndrome and that these have been claiming lives the world over.

They were told that the virus was characterised a viral infection in 1906 and that the earliest known documentation of symptoms like those of the dengue fever were recorded during the Jin Dynasty (AD 265-420) in the Chinese Encyclopaedia of Symptoms. The illness was associated with flying insects near water and was labelled “The Water Poison”.

Dengue is endemic in Pakistan and is at its peak in the post monsoon period. It was reported an undifferentiated fever in 1985.

Pakistan had the worst year with the virus in 2011 with reports of the virus affecting 20,000 patients and claiming 300 lives, according to official reports.

Published in Dawn, February 11th, 2016