Meanwhile, Rawalpindi and Lahore are reporting dozens of cases every day, and in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, more than 200 individuals test positive for dengue on a daily basis. Despite how concerning these figures are, they significantly underestimate the full scope of the spreading disease. Health experts estimate that at least 70% of patients with dengue fever do not require hospital admission and can be treated through outpatient doctor visits without requiring lab test confirmation because the illness is a viral infection. In Karachi today, thousands of individuals are said to be receiving treatment for dengue symptoms on any given day, according to some experts.
Given the seriousness of the situation, one may wonder why the authorities aren’t simply draining the waters and conducting recurrent fumigation treatments, which would be the very minimum. Across this context, Murtaza Wahab, the administrator of Karachi, looks pretty comical for tweeting on Monday about a fumigation drive in 28 union councils in Karachi. Perhaps the disease’s spread could have been somewhat stopped if this had been done sooner. Given that dengue outbreaks have for the past ten years been a recurring issue that appears after every monsoon season, it is not as if the administration is uninformed of what has to be done. However, this year’s intense rains and the damage that the floods have done to the health system foreshadow a dengue outbreak.
The authorities must act quickly and again utilize the lessons they discovered in 2011 while battling a persistent dengue outbreak in Lahore. Until all mosquitoes are eliminated, they must repeatedly conduct fumigation drives in all impacted locations while making sure that rainfall does not collect on the streets.
