Pakistan continues to suffer a growing momentum in the spread of dengue fever cases amid the recent outbreak mainly attributed to the monsoon-rain-triggered floods in the country.

Hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the floods were living in the open. Stagnant floodwaters, spread over hundreds of kilometres, may take two to six months to recede. Already they have led to widespread cases of skin and eye infections, diarrhoea, malaria, typhoid and dengue fever.

Sindh

Dengue cases have gone out of control in Sindh as 400 new cases have been reported in the province during the last 24 hours where Karachi is the worst-hit area as 297 cases have been reported during the past 24 hours in the port city, the provincial health department said in a report issued on Thursday.

According to the health department, 4,319 cases have been reported in the province since September 1, while 6,888 cases have been reported across Sindh this year.

Punjab

Dengue fever is also on the rise in Punjab as 196 new cases have been reported in the province during the last 24 hours while 2 people have died of the fever taking the death toll due to the disease to six in the province this year.

Lahore and Gujranwala reported two deaths each this year while Rawalpindi and Gujrat reported one death each this year.

Dengue larvae were recovered from 2,120 places across Punjab, while larvae were destroyed from 1,006 places in Lahore to curb the spread of the disease.

The number of dengue fever cases is also rising in the federal capital at an alarming rate as 96 new cases have been reported in Islamabad while Rawalpindi reported 98 cases in the last 24 hours.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

The spread of the dengue virus intensified in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as 242 more people were diagnosed with the disease in the province during the last 24 hours, the provincial health department reported on Thursday.

A total of 666 people were infected with the dengue virus in the province during the last 24 hours.

Meanwhile, the number of cases in KP’s Bara Tehsil is also on the rise with residents complaining lack of measures to curb the spread of the disease.

Tehsil Municipal Administration (TMA) Bara said that it had no fuel budget to conduct dengue fog spray.

Moreover, the number of active cases in the province stands currently at 1,614 and the total number of patients this year has reached 5,506.

Water-borne diseases spreading in flood-hit areas

The death toll from malaria and other diseases tearing through Pakistan’s flood-ravaged regions reached 324, authorities said.

The Sindh provincial government said makeshift health facilities and mobile camps in flooded areas had treated more than 78,000 patients in the last 24 hours, and more than 2 million since July 1. Six of them died, it said.

It confirmed 665 new malaria cases among internally displaced families over the same period, with another 9,201 suspected cases. It said a quarter of the more than 19,000 patients screened in the last 24 hours across the province were positive, a total of 4,876.

With input from Reuters