Dr Faisal Appreciates Dengue Control Team's Efforts

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 14th Oct, 2021 ) :Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination Dr. Faisal Sultan appreciated the efforts of dengue control team for curbing spread of the disease in the Federal capital.

In a tweet, Dr Faisal said the ministry was making sincere efforts to protect citizens from dengue virus and its work of his team in this regard was appreciable.

Meanwhile, health experts had advised the citizens to take special preventive measures to protect them from the dengue virus in wake of increasing number of cases.

They said citizens should properly dispose of solid waste and stop water storage practices to prevent any access to egg-laying mosquitoes. They said mosquitoes breed primarily in containers like earthenware jars, metal drums and concrete cisterns used for domestic water storage, discarded plastic food containers, used automobile tyres and other items which could store rainwater.

Dr Wasim Khawaja from the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) said dengue was a mosquito-borne infection, which had now become a major public health concern.

He said dengue fever was a severe, flu-like illness that affected infants, young children and adults. He added the spread of dengue was attributed to expanding geographic distribution of the four dengue viruses and of their mosquito vectors, the most important of which was the predominantly urban species Aedes aegypti.

He said rapid growth of the urban population was bringing ever greater number of people into contact with this vector, especially in areas that were favourable for mosquito breeding in places where household water storage was common solid waste disposal services were inadequate.

He said dengue virus was transmitted to humans through the bites of infective female Aedes mosquitoes. He added that mosquitoes generally acquired the virus while feeding on the blood of an infected person.

He said after virus incubation for eight to ten days, an infected mosquito was capable, during probing and blood feeding, of transmitting the virus to susceptible individuals for the rest of its life.

He said the virus circulated in the blood of infected humans for two to seven days which was approximately the same time as they suffer from fever. He added that clinical features of dengue fever vary according to the age of the patient.

Medical expert, Dr Sharif Astori said infants and young children might have a non-specific febrile illness with a rash as older children and adults might have either a mild febrile syndrome or the classical incapacitating disease with an abrupt onset and high fever, severe headache, pain behind the eyes, muscle and joint pains and rash.

He said dengue haemorrhagic fever was a potentially a deadly complication that was characterized by high fever.