Battling the dengue outbreak.

Byline: Dr. Khalid Mahmood

Rain in Sindh, especially in Karachi, came as a nightmare this year. The suffering of people due to roads and whole localities turning into pools of water has been uncountable since days, but overall, the number of avoidable deaths occurring because of electrocution and other reasons has been the most depressing. This story not only repeats every year, but the situation is compounded as we are hit with poorer infrastructure and equally unprepared each time round.

In the aftermath of the rain, with so much of filth and stagnating water providing for excellent breeding ground for flies and mosquitoes, there was first a remarkable rise in diarrheal and respiratory tract infections, followed subsequently by rising number of cases of dengue fever, malaria and chikungunya reporting to hospitals and clinics.

Infectious diseases in the offing! Fear for one of the worst epidemics of dengue and malaria this year in Karachi is not unjustified. Our public health system being a total failure, the innocent masses are forever entangled with one or another health issue mostly because of no fault of their own. The memories of the recent HIV outbreak in Larkana and its surrounding areas are still fresh, as are the cases of Congo fever being reported from different corners of country and the issue of extensively drug-resistant (XDR) typhoid fever having spread from a poor locality of Hyderabad because of contamination of water supply with sewerage water. Physicians like myself are increasingly being confronted with such difficult to treat and resistant cases, every now and then.

Dengue is a mosquito born viral disease, the global incidence of which has been on the rise recently with more than half of the world population in some 100 countries at risk. According to WHO estimates, 390 million dengue infections occur per year, but only 96 million manifest clinically - the remaining go unnoticed. Pakistan has been having dengue epidemics regularly since the 2010 floods, but the reported numbers are far less than the actual incidence because of lack of proper data collecting and reporting systems.

Dengue is transmitted by the female mosquito species Aedes aegypti mainly - this bug is notorious for transmitting chikungunya, yellow fever and zika infections as well. Dengue usually results in a flu like illness and contrary to what it is commonly thought, is seldom fatal. High grade fever with severe headache, pain behind the eyes, muscle...

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT