To everyone’s utter amazement, dengue fever that is refusing to die down, claimed two more lives in the provincial metropolitan, medical authorities confirmed on Saturday.
Per details, 67-year-old Muhammad Ilyas from Kot Lakhpat and 65-year-old M Anwar from Johar Town are the two recent victims of the deadly virus at Services Hospital which has taken hundreds of precious lives across the province this year, with its major focus in the metropolitan where its severity and extent was unprecedented. Medical experts believed that the dengue epidemic will die down in extreme temperatures because the mosquito breeds in moderate temperatures.
However, despite the temperature at the low ebb of even 0 degree Celsius, the dengue virus has refused to budge. This has created a lot of curiosity and amazement among the people at large who had taken a sigh of relief with the coming of winters, thinking that the disease would die down during winter.
The Services Hospital additional medical superintendent told Pakistan Today that both patients came to the hospital with the disease (dengue) symptoms and the cause of their death was dengue. To a question, he said patients keep coming to hospitals even in such severe cold weather because the indoor temperature is moderate for its growth.
“People are keeping their houses warm, which means the virus can survive inside the houses,” Mayo Hospital Microbiology Head Dr Tayyaba told Pakistan today, adding that the mosquitoes and the virus both had acquired immunity too.
“It’s a virus, it can mutate into forms unknown to us and we still aren’t aware of its reservoir,” she said.
