RAWALPINDI: The city’s three government hospitals continued receiving dengue patients as 61 more cases surfaced on Sunday, taking the tally to 1,172 in the current season.

Officials said 1,172 dengue cases had been reported in the district since March this year while in the corresponding period last year 1,096 cases had been reported, though in 2022 the number was 2,093.

Till Sept 8, a total of 157 dengue cases had been reported in the district while the number increased by 1,015 cases in the last three weeks.

A large number of dengue patients reported to the three government hospital - Holy Family Hospital, Benazir Bhutto Hospital and Rawalpindi Teaching Hospital at Raja Bazaar.

All the patients arrived from 70 union councils of the city and 20 wards of Rawalpindi and Chaklala cantonment boards.

On Sunday, 399 patients landed in the three hospitals while 61 of them tested positive. Total 222 dengue patients are in the hospitals including 34 at HFH, 27 at BBH and 19 at RTH while the remaining are in Fauji Foundation Hospital, Quaid-i-Azam Hospital and others.

A senior doctor at HFH said that the hospital had sufficient beds to accommodate more patients. At present, more than 200 patients were admitted in the three hospitals which have the capacity to accommodate more than 500 patients at a time.

He said 1,029 patients had been discharged in the current season after treatment, adding a large number of patients had recovered from the disease. He said the number of dengue patients was likely to reduce in October end.

“The district administration under the supervision of Deputy Commissioner Dr Hassan Waqar Cheema is working day and night to clear the city and cantonment from the dengue virus,” said a senior official of the district administration.

He said that a third party audit of the anti-dengue drive continued in the city and cantonment areas by Agriculture and Local Government departments to check the work of the sanitary patrols and other officials.

He said that the district administration had declared Chak Jalalddin and Kotha Kalan union councils sensitive. However, he said mostly patients arrived from Gulistan Colony, Morgah, Airport Housing Society and New Afzal Town near Gulraiz.

Published in Dawn, September 30th, 2024