Experts call for vaccination drives after detection of cholera cases
By Ashfaq Yusufzai
2022-07-22
PESHAWAR: Health department is strengthening surveillance system following detection of 21 cholera cases in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa amid calls physicians to start cholera vaccination campaigns like other provinces of the country.
The cases have been recorded in Peshawar, Malakand, Swat, Khyber and Kohat. The health experts have urged the government to declare outbreak of cholera in these areas.
Physicians at a teaching hospitaltold this scribe that cholera was extremely dangerous and entailed huge mortality.
Officials in health department told Dawn they were working on fast-track basis and started testing in two laboratories. They said that more laboratories and sentinel sites were being established in addition to holding medical camps and scaling up public awareness to preventfurther spread of the disease in the affected districts.
The province, from January to July 20, has recorded 485,000 cases of diarrhoea including over 9,000 acute watery diarrhoea cases besides registering 21 cases of cholera.
Most cases were detected in 16 districts including Tank, Battagram, Peshawar, Mardan, Malakand, Swabi, Karak, Dir Lower, Swat, Nowshera, Haripur, Mansehra, Dera Ismail Khan, Dir Upper, Charsadda and Chitral.
A report said that cholera cases were confirmed after samples of suspected patients were tested in Public Health Reference Laboratory, Khyber Medical University (KMU) Peshawar and Saidu Group of Teaching Hospitals (SGTH), Swat. Both the laboratories tested 58 and 24 samples, respectively.
It said that 14 confirmed patients were less than 10-year-old while ratio of male and female patients stood at 75:25.
Peshawar reported nine cases, Malakand five, Swat and Khyber three each and Kohat recorded a single case of cholera.
It added that 85 per cent patients were admitted to hospitals and no death was recorded so far.
Officials said that health department continued to organise medical camps in the af fected areas and imparted trainingto 1,406 personnel besides holding 63 community sessions and distributing 8,500 information, education and communication (IEC) materials. They said that they also held case management sessions at hospitals in most affected areas where doctors, nurses and paramedics were trained.
The department has enlisted services of consultants for management of acute watery diarrhoea and cholera management while assessment of six sentinel sites has been completed. The department is establishing 43 sentinel sites and four laboratories to conduct 50 to 60 cholera tests on average per day.
Officials said that acute watery diarrhoea was the second leading cause of death, particularly in children having less than five years of age. The disease has a seasonal surge pattern that increases during pre-monsoon period and lasts till end of monsoon.
Physicians at the teaching hospitals said that they were receiving more cases of acute watery diarrhoea in the current year. In case of upswing in acute watery diarrhoea, tests for cholera were very important, they said.
They said that cholera was an immediately notifiable disease even af ter detection of a single case and warranted declaradon of outbreak in the affected area.They said that it was an outbreak and should be taken up seriously and robust system of surveillance should be put in place for timely detection and response for prevention and control of the disease to save lives.
Physicians said that Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan had already reported cholera cases. Balochistan has also reported about 12 deaths. All these three provinces have established sentinel sites and laboratories for surveillance of acute watery diarrhoea and cholera cases to stop further spread of the disease.
These provinces have also submitting proposals to start oral cholera vaccine (OCV) campaign in hot spots whereas Khyber Pakhtunkhwa might miss the campaign. In Balochistan, OCV campaign has already been launched in Quetta while Punjab and Sindh are also preparing to start the drive.
Physicians said Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had not yet appropriately started surveillance by declaring sentinel sites and laboratories.
Health officials, however, told Dawn that they had started cholera tests in KMU and SGT H Swat with the supported of World Health Organisation and would soon notify those laboratories as sentinel labs for testing.