Minister asks authorities to contain spread of dengue, malaria, waterborne diseases

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal has directed the health authorities to put their entire focus on tackling the spread of malaria, dengue, and other water-borne diseases.

Iqbal who is chairman of the National Flood Response Coordination Centre (NFRCC) said this while chairing a high-level meeting of the body recently formed to deal with the aftermaths of devastating floods triggered by monsoon rains in June and continued till the end of September.

The forum was informed by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) chairman that in the past 24 hours no flood-related death or injury was reported anywhere in the country.

The NFRCC chairman directed the Health Ministry to coordinate with all the provincial health departments to tackle the challenges pertaining to mother and child healthcare.

The meeting was informed about relief trains from Turkey and flights carrying relief goods to Pakistan. “Nine trains have arrived with relief goods and flood relief items of six trains have been distributed,” the session was briefed. “Relief items from the remaining three trains will be unloaded today.”

The forum was briefed about models of environment-friendly shelter homes. “A comprehensive plan has been prepared for construction of shelter homes in proposed model villages,” the session was informed.

Briefing the participants, Lieutenant General Akhtar Nawaz, Chairman NDMA said that now the country was entering in the second phase of the flood situation which is the reconstruction phase.

Construction of flood-resilient shelter homes was also discussed during the session as the proposed model village example gave a comprehensive plan of the structures that provided many families with shelter during the 2010 flooding.

During the session, the panel also overviewed the problems caused by a shortage of funds and the cost of logistics for rehabilitation and settlement of affectees.

Following changing weather and the advent of the autumn season, the dengue fever cases started to decline in the federal capital as in the past 24 hours a total of 34 new dengue fever cases were detected in Islamabad taking the total number to 2,586 during the ongoing season.

According to data released by the District Health Officer (DHO) Islamabad here on Monday, 21 dengue cases were reported in rural areas while 13 were registered in the urban areas of the federal capital.

The DHO further said, the federal capital so far during this year has reported six dengue fever deaths of which four in the rural areas while two in the urban areas of the city.

Unlike the federal capital Islamabad, the number of dengue fever cases across Pakistan is continuously increasing amid an outbreak due to floods triggered by heavy monsoon rains.

Sindh reported 341 new infections, said the provincial health department of which at least 246 dengue infections were reported in Karachi in the last 24 hours.

According to the provincial health department report, so far 36 people lost their lives due to the vector-borne infection in the mega city. The total number of cases this year in the province has reached 10,495.

In the last 24 hours, 287 more people were diagnosed with the disease in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, the provincial health department reported.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022