Advisor to Chief Minister Punjab on Health Khawaja Salman Rafique has constituted a special team consisting of senior clinicians of the Health Department after surfacing of congo virus in Bahawalpur.
The team will furnish its report after examining the situation. All contacts of congo fever patients are being kept in quarantine. These people would remain under surveillance during the incubating period of congo virus so as to control spread of the disease.
Experts of World Health Organisation, doctors of Health Department and epidemiologists have started taking precautionary measures on the spot.
In this connection, an important meeting presided over by the Advisor on Health was held in Civil Secretariat in which Secretary Specialized Healthcare & Medical Education Najam Ahmad Shah, Special Secretary Dr Sajid Mahmood Chauhan, Additional Secretary (Tech) Dr Salman Shahid, Director General Health Dr Mukhtar Hussain Syed and the officers of Communicable Disease Control Programme were present.
The DG Health informed the meeting that a student nurse of DHQ Hospital Lodhran was admitted in BVH Bahawalpur with complaint of severe abdominal pain and was operated but she did not survive.
After four days, the surgeon doctor Dr Saghir who had operated on the nurse, was admitted in a private hospital of Karachi with symptoms of hemorrhagic fever which was later diagnosed as congo fever. After that a house surgeon also developed the same symptoms.
The DG Health informed that after confirmation of congo fever in both the doctors, an alert has been issued in district Lodhran and Bahawalpur. The health teams have quarantined all contacts of the student nurse and the doctors. Moreover, medical teams of WHO and Health Department are monitoring the situation and blood samples of the isolated people have been sent to National Institute of Health (NIH) Islamabad.
The Health Department has advised doctors and nurses to wear Personal Protective Gears (PPG) which are available in hospital in sufficient numbers, during the treatment of congo patients if any. The Health Department is in close contact with the district administration of both the districts. Kh. Salman Rafique directed the DG Health to be vigilant and keep an eye on the situation.
He directed that all out steps should be taken to control the disease according to the SOPs of WHO. The Health Department has also approached the Livestock Department authorities and they have been asked to start an immediate campaign to eliminate ticks from the cattle and livestock.
