Good news for Islooites: It will not rain in Islamabad on Eid Day, whether Eid is on Saturday or Sunday, according to Imran Ahmad, director (weather forecasting), Pakistan Meteorological Department. In fact, Imran told Business Recorder that dry weather was expected to continue throughout Pakistan on the Eid occasion.
However, in view of the outbreak of dengue fever epidimic at Karachi, due to wet spell at Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi at the same time, Business Recorder got in touch with Dr Faisal Mansoor, Director Federal Malaria Control.
He assured the people of Islamabad that there was no danger of dengue outbreak at Islamabad right now. "But we might face the danger at Rawalpindi and Islamabad after November", he added. He said generally speaking the outbreak of this dreaded disease starts at Rawalpindi/Islamabad during November, which was only about three weeks from now, said Dr Faisal.
Explaining the dengue fever phenomenon, he said the dengue producing female mosquitoe live inside home, never moving out or leaving crevices, and she spent the time swarming over stored freshwater lying un-used for three days to about a week. He said that right now Karachi is facing outbreak of the disease. There is no need to panic but he warned of the return of the disease in areas such as Rawalpindi/Islamabad as well as in other rural areas after Eid.
"This would be the time when visitors from Karachi, many of them carriers of the disease, start journey from Karachi to upcountry and go visiting relatives and their homes, thus infecting some of the local inmates here with the virus.
Dr Mansur advocated that people in Rawalpindi /Islamabad, and in the rural areas must take precautionary steps. If any one suffered from high fever, pain at the back of the retina of the eyes and swabs on body skins.
These were general symptoms of dengue fever disease and a person with this description must be removed at once to a hospital. Dr Mansoor promised that soon after Eid his department would sponsor tours of vehicles emitting prophlactic and preventive fumes against dengue fever all over the capital city.