KARACHI: The Sindh health department has claimed that its dengue prevention and control programme is all set to launch a `comprehensive` project from the next fiscal year and it will effectively control the mosquitoborne disease that affected close to 1,000 people this year in the province, it emerged on Saturday.

Officials said that Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah had approved a grant of Rs274.982 million for the programme.

The programme would continue for three years and would take all scientific measuresand public awareness schemes to ensure the mosquito`s lethality got minimised.

Giving data from 2010 to 2016, the officials said that 17,500 dengue cases were reported in Sindh and 107 of them had lost their lives.

In 2010, some 4,072 cases were reported and 25 of them died, with the fatality ratio of 0.6 per cent. In 2011, the fatality ratio increased to 1.6pc with 1,079 dengue cases, of them 18 lost their lives.

The officials claimed that the health department launched an awareness drive and as a result2012 recorded only 731 cases with four deaths and 0.5pc fatality ratio.

In 2013, the number of dengue cases increased to 5,970 with 32 deaths and fatal-ity ratio of 0.5pc.

In 2014, though the number of dengue cases came down to 1,276 but deaths were 16 thus the fatality ratio climbed to 1.2pc.

In 2015, the number of cases increased to 3,692, of them 11 patients died, thus lowering the fatality ratio to 0.2pc.

The officials said that the first major outbreak in Pakistan occurred in 2010 when 4,072 cases were reported in Sindh and 5,400 in Punjab.

In 2011, Punjab faced the worst type of epidemic with 21,000 cases and 350 deaths while in Sindh the reported cases were 1,079 with 18 deaths.

Last year, 3,692 cases and 11 deaths werereported in Sindh while in Punjab more than 5,000 cases were reported with 40 deaths.

They said that the Punjab government had launched a fully fledged dengue programme in 2010.

The Sindh health department had controlled the dengue to some extent even then a separate dengue control programme was necessary to run. This year so far a single death has been recorded in Karachi.

However, the officials feared, coming monsoon, which is expected to bring widespread rains, would offer blanket breeding grounds to the mosquito, which will be the first major challenge for the dengue control programme to face.