The dengue fever, which is the direct outcome of the municipal bodies and public health institutions negligence, has exposed the failure of local governments.
The poor sanitation facilities in densely populated areas invite mosquito breeding, resulting in malaria and dengue out breaks, said a report released by an health NGO here on Saturday.
The report said excessive and irrational use of antibiotics and antiviral medicines in Pakistan has made the virus and bacteria more resistant to medicines, which turns diseases like dengue fever into epidemics.
The report says that keeping in mind the aggravating situation in Karachi, the administration of other cities should have taken appropriate measures to avoid the diseases but unfortunately nothing was done and many people fell victim to the mosquito in interior Sindh, Rawalpindi, Islamabad and Peshawar.
The report also lamented action of the federal and provincial governments who confined themselves to merely issuing press statements rather than taking concrete measures to cope with the situation. There are rising complaints in Karachi and other cities of charging patient for blood tests in public sector hospitals.
It said there are four types of dengue viruses that cause dengue fever. The most fatal and severe one is the dengue hemorrhagic fever. In fact, dengue hemorrhagic fever is a complication of common dengue fever.
The symptoms of all the four types of dengue fevers appear to be the same at the initial stages of illness, which can be cured with proper medication within the first two weeks of the illness.
Dengue hemorrhagic fever mostly targets infants and children below 15 years of age; however, the dengue hemorrhagic fever affects adults as well. Dengue virus can attack a person more than once in a lifetime. However, commonly dengue is suspected when one has sudden high grade fever 103-105 degrees F, accompanied with severe headache (mostly in the forehead), pain behind the eyes, body aches and pains, rash on the skin and nausea or vomiting.