The initial draft of five-year strategy to overcome the rapidly spreading dengue fever has been forwarded by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the provincial health experts to the Punjab government, while the final version of the strategy would be tabled within 7-10 days.
Sources told Business Recorder here on Saturday that there are more than 150 ways and means to control the virus causing fatal fever, but it has been cause of many hundred deaths in the country, especially in Punjab. "We have discussed in detail the methods that might be more useful and according to the climatic change in Pakistan. One of the major reasons behind the rapidly increasing dengue fever is lack of capacity building and motivation among Pakistani community to fight the virus", sources said.
Dengue fever may be caused by any one of four types of dengue virus: DEN-1, DEN-2, DEN-3, and DEN-4. Infection with one virus does not protect a person against infection with the other. Sources said, "The strategy would be beneficial only in future, not during the current dengue fever endemic. Under the strategy, the community would be trained and mobilised against the dengue virus attacks while the doctors would also be trained in this regard". Sources told Business Recorder: "The first supply of WHO pre-qualified insecticides has reached the country, while the insecticides that were being used in Pakistan against dengue virus were substandard". Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever (DHF) or Dengue Shock Syndrome (DSS) is the more severe form, wherein a person at some time had the virus and is re-infected.
In the neighbouring countries of Pakistan, dengue still exists even after continuous spray of insecticides. For example, in India and Sri Lanka, dengue virus is still active but not so intense like that of Pakistan. It could not be compelled out of these countries as well. Same is the case with Thailand. The patients infected by dengue fever should follow these measures: get a blood test by microbiological laboratory; take plenty of water and cold fluids; take bath in cold water and place ice bag on abdomen and head along with proper medical check-up.
The insecticides are being sprayed by the provincial and the federal government but the sprays have failed to deliver the promising results. " All such efforts to control female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes have proved futile while it is being expected that the dengue fever may spread during the coming days in Pakistan", sources said. Mosquitoes which cause dengue fever get in contact with the virus when it bites an infected person. After virus incubation for eight to 10 days, an infected mosquito becomes capable of transmitting the virus for the rest of its life. The virus circulates in the blood of infected humans for two to seven days. The disease is now endemic in more than 100 countries in Africa, the Americas, the Eastern Mediterranean, South-east Asia and the Western Pacific. South-east Asia and the Western Pacific are the most seriously affected.
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