Health authorities have decided to take preventive measures to protect the residents of the federal capital from the dengue virus. According to official sources, active monitoring and surveillance of natural mosquitoes would be started to check the spread of the dengue virus. The staff of departments concerned would educate people for proper solid waste disposal and improved water storage practices, including covering containers to prevent the access of egg laying female mosquitoes to the waste. They said such steps were necessary as mosquitoes bred primarily in man-made containers like earthenware jars, metal drums and concrete cisterns which are used for domestic water storage, as well as discarded plastic food containers, used automobile tyres and other items that collect rain water. Dr Waseem Khawaja of Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) said that dengue was a mosquito-borne infection, which in recent years had become a major public health concern. He said the dengue fever was a severe, flu-like illness that affected infants, children and adults alike. He added that the spread of dengue was attributed to expanding geographic distribution of the four dengue viruses and of their mosquito vectors, the most important of which was the predominantly urban species aedes aegypti. He said the rapid growth of urban population was bringing an ever greater number of people into contact with this vector, especially in areas that were favorable for mosquito breeding like in places where household water storage was common and where solid waste disposal services were inadequate. He further said that the dengue viruses are transmitted to humans through the bites of infective female aedes mosquitoes. He added that mosquitoes generally acquired the virus while feeding on the blood of an infected person. Dr Khawaja said that after virus incubation for eight to ten days, an infected mosquito was capable during the probing and blood feeding, of transmitting the virus to susceptible individuals for the rest of its life. He said the virus circulated in the blood of infected humans for two to seven days at approximately the same time as they suffered from fever. He added the clinical features of dengue fever varied according to the age of the patient. He also said that infants and young children may have a non-specific febrile illness with rash as older children and adults may have either a mild febrile syndrome or the classical incapacitating disease with abrupt onset and high fever, severe headache, pain behind the eyes, muscle and joint pains, and rash.
