Dengue: Punjab battles another spike year.

Byline: Dr. Yasmin Rashid

The year 2019 was a spike year for dengue according to the epidemiological patterns of the last 10 years. The first spike was seen in 2011 when we lost 350 patients to this deadly virus, with total number of patients crossing 20,000 mark. A huge exercise was undertaken for management and prevention of dengue virus. The next spike came in 2015 when 4213 patients were confirmed in the province. Given this four-year cycle, the year 2019 thus was the next spike year and so far we have seen 6919 cases in Punjab out of whom majority received treatment at public sector hospitals in Punjab.

As the disease has no vaccine, prevention becomes much more important. The key to prevention is strengthening Vector Surveillance and the environmental management of the mosquito population. Given the scale of the problem, Punjab has learned over a period of time that prevention of dengue is as much a social problem as an epidemiological one. Therefore, political commitment and oversight comes from the highest level for an effective response to dengue control. Hence the Central Emergency Response Committee headed by the Chief Minister is the apex body followed by Cabinet Committee led by the Minister and then implementation committees across all tiers to ensure implementation of SOPs with micro plans in all districts.

The Cabinet Committee meetings earlier this year strongly reminded the district bodies, which are headed by Deputy Commissioners, to intensify surveillance in vulnerable localities. From March onwards the government constantly advised that this was spike year and surveillance as well larvicidal activities must be scaled up in all areas. Tragically, a few localities in Rawalpindi in general and Potohar Town in particular, were neglected and missed by surveillance teams and this revelation was made during the June Cabinet Committee meeting. Even though punitive action was initiated against the responsible staff in the district, yet the larva continued to grow into the mosquito and the epidemic started in Rawalpindi.

A vigorous Case Response in Punjab has managed to plateau the epidemic. The administrative and technical team of the Primary Healthcare Department led by Secretary PSH Capt (retd) Mohammad Usman is currently based in Rawalpindi to ensure personal oversight and monitoring to the case response whereas I have also been personally visiting the City once a week to monitor the working of District Emergency Response...