ISLAMABAD, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- The dengue fever outbreak has killed 16 persons and affected 9,634 others across Pakistan so far in this year, creating panic among the public and forcing authorities to take emergency measures to control the escalating abnormal situation, an official told Xinhua Friday.
Chief of Disease Surveillance Division at the National Institute of Health Islamabad Rana Safdar told Xinhua that as of Friday morning 2,132 cases have been reported from southern Sindh province, 2,816 from eastern Punjab, 1,772 from southwest Balochistan, 1,612 from northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, 1,210 from capital Islamabad and 92 from Pakistan-controlled Kashmir region.
According to the official, as many as eight affected people lost their lives in Sindh, three each in Islamabad and Balochistan and two in Punjab.
Health departments and local governments across the country are busy in clustering the areas after the reported cases and are taking precautionary measures to control the mosquito-borne viral infection, said the official.
"Concerned authorities are responding to the identified hotspots by focusing on awareness-raising and vector control," said the official, adding that public and private hospitals have been ordered to allocate isolated special wards and beds for the treatment of dengue patients.
He said that the field epidemiology and disease surveillance division of the government is monitoring the progress, while a 10-member team, having onboard epidemiologists and entomologists, is providing technical support to provincial health departments.
According to official statistics, since 2010, Pakistan has had several spells of dengue epidemic with over 60,000 confirmed cases and 350 deaths across the country.
