Dengue fever cases go up in Mansehra

MANSEHRA: The dengue fever cases have surged to an alarming level across the Mansehra district as a cleric who tested positive for mosquito-borne disease died in the Oghi area.

“I have alerted all basic health units and rural health centres and ordered carrying out fumigation spray everywhere in the district,” Dr Faisal Khanzada, District Health Officer, told reporters here on Tuesday.

Maulana Ghani Ahmad, the prayer leader at the central mosque in the Dagai Zamanabad in Oghi, died at Ayub Medical Complex Hospital. The cleric, according to his family, tested positive for dengue fever earlier this week.

The cases of dengue have surged in Oghi and its suburbs and people demanded that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Health Department take extra precautionary measures to bring the soaring cases down.

They said that cases of dengue fever were reported in Oghi central and Bazaargay, Jalalabad, Madina Colony, Takia Malokra, Charbagh, Rasheed, Manchora and their neighbouring localities.

According to local people, women and children also included the dengue patients being shifted to health facilities in Oghi, Mansehra and Abbottabad.The cases of dengue were also widely reported in Garhi Habibullah and its adjoining localities.

The residents of the affected areas demanded that the government launch fumigation spray to eliminate mosquitoes causing dengue and its larva.“As many as 70 cases of dengue are reported alone in Garhi Habibullah and its adjoining Telhata area and we have already started fumigation spray there,” Dr Faisal said. He said that he had sought daily reports of dengue patients shifted to health facilities across the district.

“We have dispatched our teams to Oghi and the rest of the affected parts in the district to deal with the situation,” Dr Faisal said.The DHO said that people should extend their cooperation to his debarment and not shift patients from peripheries to King Abdullah Teaching Hospital and Ayub Medical Complex Hospital Abbottabad,” he said.