Special Assistant to Chief Minister Punjab on Health, Khawaja Salman Rafique has said that dengue will not take the form of an epidemic this year due to the awareness of people, effective strategy of experts and round the clock efforts of the Punjab government.
He expressed these views while addressing a seminar on dengue held at Institute of Public Health, here on Wednesday. Khawaja Salman Rafique said that medical experts and health managers have learnt a lot from the bitter experience of last year and now dengue is not a new disease. He said that during the last one year, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and his team worked day and night and took solid measures to control dengue and new effective system has been evolved with the consultation of experts to fight dengue.
Director General Health Punjab, Dr Nisar Ahmed Cheema, Dean IPH Professor Muaz Ahmed, Associate Professor Services Hospital Dr Tayyaba, Dr Waseem Akram, EDO Health Lahore Dr Inam ul Haq and Medical Superintendent Ganga Ram Hospital Dr Ejaz Ahmed Shaikh also addressed the seminar. They said that dengue disease is also a social problem and the whole society has to discharge its responsibilities to cope with this problem. They said that the government has taken all precautionary measures as well as made arrangements for the treatment of patients, however, due to better vector and diseases surveillance, the breeding of mosquitoes is very low. They said that this problem can be controlled through collective efforts and there is a need to pay special attention to check outbreak of this disease.
Director General Health Dr Nisar Cheema, while lauding the efforts of Punjab Chief Minister, said that the dengue had become an epidemic in July last year while up till now only six dengue cases have been reported which is a proof of the success of the efforts of the government.