PESHAWAR: Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, is recording high number of dengue cases because medical teaching institutions are reporting the old cases to health department now, according to sources.

“There is backlog of old dengue cases in the medical teaching institutions (MTIs) that are being reported now. Most of the patients were admitted or tested in September but were reported to health department in October,” they said.

Sources told this scribe that Peshawar was in limelight with regard to soaring dengue patients, which was untrue as MTIs were informing the department about old cases now that created fear among the people.

Scientifically, the cases should have been on decline because of the arrival of cold season but the provincial metropolis continued to record more cases that were not new patients but were diagnosed a month or two ago, they said.

MTIs report old cases to health department as new ones

Sources said that the first case of dengue fever was detected in March in the current year while the vector-borne ailment infected people till September. “The hot season has gone but Peshawar is still recording most cases. Yesterday, Peshawar recorded 232 cases, which included at least 137 from Peshawar but about 80 cases were included from previous dates,” they added.

Most of cases were diagnosed in the previous weeks or month by the MTIs but line-list were not communicated to health department and those cases were ultimately counted as new cases, they said.

Sources said that health department was facing an uphill task to compile line-list of the cases as per protocol, which showed that bulk of the cases were not new. “The line-list gave us all information about all cases. We need to write down name, age, date of onset of symptoms, investigation, hospitalisation and recovery etc, which the MTIs have failed to provide in a timely manner,” they added.

They said that health department was looking into the issue and was likely to recommend action against the people responsible for the delayed reporting of cases.

The Peshawar-based MTIs including Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH), Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) and Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC), which have been receiving the seriously-ill dengue patients, are now sending the lists of patients to health department. They also include in the list the names of the patients, who were tested and treated in previous dates.

“The MTIs are run by Board of Governors and don’t come under the direct control of health department owing to which they have been showing laxity in sending number of infections and hospitalisations on daily basis,” said sources.

Senior officials in health department told Dawn that they got better mechanism to keep surveillance and record cases from non-MTIs hospitals because they came under the direct control of the department but MTIs didn’t bother about the gravity of the situation and sent the information about patients late that created unrest among the people.

So far, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has diagnosed 5,569 patients with dengue including 2,023 from Peshawar. The capital district has been known for dengue fever since 2017 when 25,000 people were infected with the vector-borne disease. However, the backlog of patients at the MTIs is now being communicated to the health department, which gives a wrong impression as if the city is recording most cases every day.

Officials said that the issue was being discussed and would be taken up with the MTIs. So far, KTH has reported 946 cases, LRH 103 and HMC has reported 195 cases. Old cases are being reported by the MTIs as if these are registered the same day.

A few days ago, Chief Minister Mahmood Khan expressed deep concern over rising dengue cases in Peshawar and removed the district health officer from his post.

Published in Dawn, October 29th, 2021