Raising dengue cases ring alarm bells for Pakistan's Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
Sep 26, 2021
Islamabad [Pakistan], September 26 : Apart from COVID-19, Pakistan has been witnessing another health threat in the country as cases of dengue virus has soared in two of the country's provinces -- Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Citing provincial health department, Geo Tv reported that 90 cases of dengue virus have been reported across Pakistan's Punjab over the past 24 hours. The department added that 81 of these cases were reported in Lahore alone.
Rawalpindi reported six cases of dengue virus while Vehari, Sargodha and DI Khan reported one case each of the virus over the past day.
The total tally of dengue virus cases this year have surged to 1,082 whereas 905 cases in total have been reported from Lahore this year.
Dengue larvae were found at 158 spots by health authorities on Saturday.
Meanwhile, 32 more people were infected with the virus in the federal capital in the past 24 hours, pushing the tally of the cases in Islamabad to 177.
Several cases of the dengue virus were also reported in Peshawar. The recent spike in dengue cases has alarmed the provincial health department.
People have demanded the government take adequate measures to stem the disease from spreading further.
Earlier in day, a rapid surge in dengue fever cases had been reported in the federal capital, as per Geo tv.
Islamabad District Health Officer (DHO), Dr Zaeem Zia told Geo News a day earlier that the recent increase in the cases resulted in the admission of more dengue fever patients in the hospitals.
"As many as 82 individuals contracted dengue in the last four days," Dr Zia had said.
Meanwhile, as many as 44,712 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours across the country, of which 1,780 came back positive, as per the latest statistics by the NCOC.
42 more people succumbed to the coronavirus during the same period in the country, pushing the death toll from the virus to 27,566. As per the NCOC data, with the addition of 1,780 new infections, the total caseload of the country has risen to 1,238,668.
