Dengue still haunts population despite fall in mercury

Rawalpindi: Dengue fever is still haunting the population in this region of the country particularly in Rawalpindi district despite a significant fall in mercury as in the last 24 hours, another 34 patients from the district have tested positive for the infection taking the total number of confirmed dengue fever patients reported this year from Rawalpindi to 6410 on Saturday morning.

The winter has set in and the temperature has already started recording a sharp fall in the region but still the three teaching hospitals in town including Holy Family Hospital, Benazir Bhutto Hospital and Rawalpindi Teaching Hospital are receiving well over 20 confirmed patients of dengue fever per day on average. Data collected by ‘The News’ on Saturday has revealed that as many as 293 more patients have confirmed positive for dengue fever from Rawalpindi district in the last one week showing a significant decline in the number of patients being reported from the district as compared to the number of patients reported in the previous week that was 465.

The average number of patients being reported per day from the district has dropped down to around 42 this week that was 67 in the previous week, however, experts were expecting that after the fall in mercury level taken place in the region, there would not be more than 10 cases of the infection per day. It is, however, encouraging that the dengue fever outbreak that is still hitting hard the population in the district has claimed no life in the last three-and-a-half weeks. The infection has claimed a total of 11 lives from Rawalpindi district this year.

Many health experts believe that the majority of the dengue fever patients being reported at the time are those who were bitten by ‘aeges aegypti’, the mosquito that causes dengue fever last week when weather conditions were a little warmer. They believe that the number of patients reported from the district would register a sharp decline in the next two weeks or so after a further fall in mercury.