Dengue outbreak starts losing intensity in Pindi

Rawalpindi : The on-going one of the severe dengue fever outbreaks in the history of Rawalpindi district has started losing intensity but still, in the last 24 hours, as many as 62 individuals belonging to Rawalpindi have tested positive for the infection.

Data collected by ‘The News’ on Saturday has revealed that the confirmation of another 62 dengue fever cases from the district has taken the total number of confirmed cases so far reported from Rawalpindi this year to 6117. It is important that the outbreak has claimed a total of 11 lives from Rawalpindi district this year though no death due to the infection has been reported in the last 18 days, after October 29.

The number of patients of dengue fever being reported from Rawalpindi district is registering a significant decline for the last one week due to a fall in temperature and on average, less than 67 patients have been reported per day from the district in the last seven days. In the last seven days, a total of 465 patients belonging to Rawalpindi have tested positive for dengue fever.

It is worth mentioning here that in the previous week, as many as 714 individuals from the district were tested positive for dengue fever, recording an average of 102 cases per day.

Data collected by ‘The News’ also reveals that the burden of dengue fever patients at the teaching hospitals in town has also started registering a decline as on Saturday morning, a total of 170 dengue fever patients were undergoing treatment at the teaching hospitals in town including Holy Family Hospital, Benazir Bhutto Hospital, Rawalpindi Teaching Hospital and Fauji Foundation Hospital. The number of admitted dengue fever patients at the teaching hospitals was around 240 in the previous week.

Data also reveals that the dengue fever outbreak is still hitting hard the population in Potohar Town, peri-urban areas and the areas falling under the jurisdiction of Rawalpindi and Chaklala Cantonment Boards, Municipal Corporation Rawalpindi and rural areas in Potohar region.

According to health experts, the number of dengue fever cases from Rawalpindi district has started registering a decline but still it is time for individuals to take extraordinary measures to avoid contact with mosquitoes including ‘aedes aegypti’, the mosquito that causes dengue fever as the mosquitoes have now moved to warmer places inside homes, offices and vehicles to stay and feed on humans.