As the country struggles to keep up with one pandemic, the remnants of a previous epidemic threaten to rear their ugly head. Dengue cases continue to rise at an alarming rate in several cities across the country especially in Lahore. News reports indicate that the authorities are having a hard time persuading the public to adopt precautionary measures.
According to data provided by the medical authorities, 16,330 dengue cases have been recorded across the country, of which 40 people have lost their lives. Of the total cases, recorded till October 15, the majority, 5,709 dengue cases were recorded in the Punjab, of which, 504 cases were reported in the past 24 hours.
Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) is another danger point — the 2017 dengue epidemic, which mainly targeted Peshawar, still haunts the province. KP has reportedly detected over 3,300 cases of mosquito-borne disease and four deaths. Sindh so far has reported over 2,550 dengue infections this year, while the virus has claimed 12 lives.
Meanwhile, it isn’t clear what steps the concerned authorities have taken to prevent the breeding of mosquitoes in high-risk areas. According to a news report, a large number of citizens have complained that no fumigation has been carried out in their areas.
The Punjab government, under then chief minister Shahbaz Sharif, had effectively combated its own dengue epidemic in 2011, aided with the knowledge and expertise of Sri Lankan medical teams, and enacted new laws to prevent such a health emergency from recurring.
Indeed, such interprovincial initiatives are the need of the hour to contain the outbreak as soon as possible and does not reach the near-epidemic proportions of 2019, when cases in Punjab rose to more than 8,670 with over 50,000 reported from all of Pakistan.
Considering our previous experience of hundreds of deaths due to this disease, and that our health infrastructure is already overstretched due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the government cannot afford to delay taking vigilant action to curb the spread of dengue. A large-scale public awareness campaign is also needed to prevent misinformation about dengue and to encourage people to take precautions.
