Sindh Dengue Prevention and Control Program Provincial Program Manager Dr Shakeel Aamir Mullick on Monday disclosed that 15 people died from deadly dengue viral fever in 2014 so far and all these deaths were reported in Karachi.
Dr Shakeel Mullick said 15 people died of dengue viral fever 1st January 2014 to December 28; however, the ratio of dengue deaths of this year was low as compared to 2013. He said 1286 dengue fever cases were reported in various public and private hospitals of Sindh, 1250 in Karachi, 36 cases in rest of Sindh.
To a question that why dengue prevention & control activities were slowed down in Sindh province, Dr Mullick said their program is properly functioning in all districts of the province and major public hospitals are coordinating with dengue program management. He said ratio of reporting of cases to public and private hospitals remained low as compared to last year. He said relatively fewer people contracted dengue virus this year.
According to the date of the year 2013, 5,750 dengue viral fever cases were reported across the Sindh province in 2013. Out of them 5,058 cases were detected in Karachi and 692 in rest of the province.
As many as 32 dengue fever patients died across the province last year, 26 in Karachi, three in Hyderabad and one each in Mirpurkhas, Thatta and Larkana.
However, unlike the year 2013, this year the Dengue Prevention and Control Program Sindh did not share the data about dengue patients with media on daily basis. It is said that the sharing of the data was stopped because it was creating a bad image of governance in Sindh province and poor performance of its health, local government and public health departments.