By NewsDesk @infectiousdiseasenews
Last week, the World Health Organization reported that Pakistan is battling one of the worst dengue outbreaks the country has experienced. As of early November, more than 45,000 people in Pakistan have been infected with the dengue virus in 2019.
Now according to a report today from the news source, Dawn, we see that an additional 5,000 cases were reported in the past two weeks. This has brought the outbreak total for 2019 to 49,587, nearly double the most cases reported in a year in 2011 (27,000).
Sindh has reported the most cases with 13,251, followed closely by Islamabad (13,173) and Punjab with 9855.
The death toll this year stands at 79.
Spokesperson for the Ministry of National Health Services (NHS), Sajid Shah, said “It is for the first time in the history of Pakistan that Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) has been activated at the National Institute of Health for dengue outbreak.”
Pakistan reported their first dengue outbreak in 1994.
Dengue outbreak: ‘Probably the worst we’ve had since 2010’ says CDC epidemiologist
WHO notes the incidence of dengue has grown dramatically around the world in recent decades. A vast majority of cases are asymptomatic and hence the actual numbers of dengue cases are underreported and many cases are misclassified.
One estimate indicates 390 million dengue infections per year (95% credible interval 284–528 million), of which 96 million (67–136 million) manifest clinically (with any severity of disease). Another study, of the prevalence of dengue, estimates that 3.9 billion people, in 128 countries, are at risk of infection with dengue viruses.
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