PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa health department has declared a dengue outbreak in Kohat as the district recorded most cases of the mosquito-borne disease in the province last week.
Kohat has reported 788 dengue cases this year, including 72 this week, according to a report issued by the Integrated Diseases Surveillance and Response System of the Directorate General Health Services, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, on Tuesday.
It said the tally of dengue casesin the province had reached 1,327 this year.
The report said five of 19 samples tested at the Public Health Reference Lab at Khyber Medical University were confirmed positive for dengue, providing evidence of an outbreak in Kohat.
It said a rapid response team deployed by the health department had also detected mosquito larvae in Gulshanabad, identified as the district’s main urban hotspot.
The report said Peshawar, once the province’s main dengue hotspot, ranks second with 251 cases, followed by Bannu with 79, Haripur 35, Nowshera 20, Abbottabad 17,Charsadda 14, Swabi and Lakki Marwat 13 each, Khyber 12, Mansehra 11 and Swat and Bajaur 10 each.
It added that the remaining 24 endemic districts had reported cases in single digits, while teams had detected and eliminated larvae in 11 districts.
Health department sources warned that the dengue-related situation in Kohat could snowball into a major public health problem, so the local administration was asked a month ago to level the sites of refugee camps demolished several months ago.
However, debris remains at the site, with ditches becoming stagnant pools to provide breeding grounds for mosquitoes that transmit dengue.