Dengue kills 23 in Pakistan

At least two more people died of dengue fever at different hospitals in Pakistan's Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province on Wednesday, taking the death toll to 23 over the last two months.

The deceased were under treatment at Hayatabad Medical Complex and Khyber Teaching Hospital in Peshawar, the capital city of the province, after they were diagnosed positive for the mosquito-born disease, Geo TV reported.

Over the last 24 hours, 372 more people have tested positive for the disease out of the 1,900 people who came to different hospitals of the province for medical examination, according to the Dengue Response Unit of the provincial health department.

"A total of 381 patients are admitted in the various hospitals of the province till now," said the health department, adding that 142 more patients infected with the dengue fever have been admitted to the hospitals over the last 24 hours.

About 4,500 people have been infected by the dengue fever in the province with majority of the cases being treated in provincial capital of Peshawar, the report said.

The provincial government is trying to overcome the disease by launching door-to-door awareness campaign about the disease and fumigation was being carried out in different areas of the province to kill the larvae of infected mosquitoes.

Apart from that, the provincial government has arranged free of cost diagnosis and treatment centres in all government hospitals of the province.

Health experts from the country's eastern Punjab province also visited various health departments of Peshawar and gave their expert opinion over the disease as Punjab successfully combated the catastrophic viral disease in 2014 after seeking advice from Sri-Lankan experts.

--IANS

ahm/dg