Where’s health apparatus to cope with the epidemic?
Since its outbreak in 2011 and a rather quiet 2012, the dengue virus is again threatening to reach epidemic proportions. The figures of patients tested positive for the dengue virus are already in hundreds. Though the numbers are sketchy, many casualties have also been reported. And this is mostly coming from the urban centres like Lahore and Rawalpindi where the media reach and focus is far greater than smaller towns and cities. The trend with dengue is that the outbreak of virus returns in full force in alternate years. When in 2012, the dengue cases were few and far between owing to this natural breach, the Punjab government patted itself on the back, and triumphantly boasted of having eradicated the province from the virus. In its euphoric self-congratulation, in full campaign mode, the Punjab administration even made condescending offers of assistance to other provinces to help control the disease.
Now after the 2012 interregnum, as the virus has rapidly broken out again the complacent Punjab health machinery has been caught napping. Commenting after a kid died from dengue at Lahore’s Children’s Hospital, Prof Dr Masood Sadiq candidly admitted: “It was not humanly possible to diagnose a large number of young patients visiting the health facility with high temperature from dengue”. The statement makes it evident that the Punjab’s public health system is not equipped to adequately deal with the killer disease if it spreads further to reach emergency levels. And, if that unfortunately came to pass, this time round the Shahbaz Sharif dispensation cannot even blame it on Islamabad – as it did in 2011, as if it was another conspiracy against the Sharif’s and the ‘N’ rule by Asif Zardari and the PPP.
In 2011, the province did not have a health minister – as the CM was retaining the portfolio with himself. This time round there is a health minister, though it is Rana Sanaullah, the law minister, who has laid emphasis on public awareness campaigns – which, to give credit where it’s due, have been pretty all-encompassing. That is all good, but regardless of howsoever aware the public is, the epidemic cannot be dealt with the people only knowing about it for at best it falls in the prevention area. The point to ponder for the provincial government is: confirmed dengue cases are increasing and with them also the mortality rate. If it became an epidemic, where is the health apparatus to cope with it?