Sindh to fumigate houses of all dengue patients, 20 residences around them

In order to prevent the spread of dengue in the province, the Sindh government has decided to conduct anti-mosquito fumigation in the houses of all dengue patients and 20 other houses in their surroundings.

The decision to this effect was made at a meeting held at the Sindh Secretariat on Thursday with Sindh Chief Secretary Dr Muhammad Sohail Rajput in chair. The meeting was held to review the strategy to deal with the dengue outbreak in the province.

The chief secretary directed the officials concerned to compile data on the dengue patients detected in the province on a daily basis by getting reports from all the diagnostic laboratories in both the public and private sectors.

He said the Sindh government would employ more epidemiologists and conduct public awareness campaigns to tackle the dengue outbreak. Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) Administrator Barrister Murtaza Wahab informed the meeting that fumigation would especially be carried out in those areas from where multiple dengue cases had been reported.

He said the KMC had been using 30 vehicles to conduct the anti-dengue spray drive in the city. The services of the Sindh Health Care Commission had been utilised to lower the cost of the tests for the diagnosis of dengue, he added. The meeting decided that health experts from Punjab would be brought for the training of doctors and other staff associated with the dengue control programme of Sindh. The meeting was briefed that so far 4,031 cases of dengue fever had been detected in the province since the start of the current year and nine people had lost their lives due to the viral disease. In 2021, 6373 dengue cases were reported in the province.

JI fumigation drive in city

Following the recent outbreaks of dengue and malaria in Karachi, Jamaat-e-Islami Karachi chief Hafiz Naeemur Rehman on Thursday kicked off a fumigation drive under the supervision of the party’s welfare wing, Alkhidmat.

According to Alkhidmat CEO Naveed Ali Baig, over a dozen vehicles will be taking part in the campaign. The city has been divided into 11 zones and the drive will be carried out accordingly.

Speaking at the inauguration of the fumigation campaign, the JI leader said that Alkhidmat had decided to launch a ten-day fumigation drive across the megalopolis. The welfare organisation will also set up camps to conduct dengue tests at discounted rates to facilitate citizens.

He said the government had failed to even collect and dump garbage, and the entire city had become a dumpster and centre of dengue and malaria outbreaks. Rehman said both the funds allocated by the government and the foreign aid for the flood-affected people fell prey to corruption. He lambasted the Pakistan Peoples Party government in Sindh, saying that the incapability and the culture of corruption in the provincial government had doubled the miseries of Karachiites.

The Sindh health department had only 25 fumigation machines to cater to a city of over 30 million individuals, and to add insult to the injury, several machines out of the total 25 were not functional, he added.

The JI leader said the only way for the city to address the prevailing issues was a local government setup. He maintained that the local government elections had been delayed unnecessarily and the old ballot papers to be used in polls next month would put a serious question mark on the credibility of the elections.

Talking about the prevailing law and order situation in the city, he said the Sindh government’s inability to control the rising street crime had left no option for the masses except agitation.

Rehman said the federal government had also mocked the citizens of Karachi by declaring that the fuel adjustment charges were only suspended and would be restored. He also lambasted the federal government for siding with the K-Electric despite its “controversial” conduct.