PESHAWAR: Doctors and health officials claim that serious pre-existing medical conditions share the blame for most dengue deaths in the provincial capital during the recent outbreak of the mosquito-borne disease.

The health department`s dengue response unit figures show that 58 people have died of dengue since the disease`s outbreak earlier this summer, which affected thousands of people in parts of province with concentrationinPeshawar`s 14 union councils.

However, Khyber Teaching Hospitaldoctors and health department officials after examining the records of dengue patients have come up with a startling disclosure about the prevalence of other serious illnesses among most of these cases.

The of ficials also claimed duplication of around 800 cases after analysing patient records acrossthe province.

A senior government of ficial told Dawn requesting anonymity that after the examination of the records of 46 people, who died after being diagnosed with dengue, the mosquito-borne illness turned out to be the sole reason for 19 deaths.

He added that the remaining 27 dengue cases also suffered from cardiac problems, pneumonia, urosepsis, diabetes, Parkinson`s, post-TB bronchiectasis, drug addiction, tetanus and other medical conditions.

Anotherofficialsaiditwasverydifficult to say at this stage whether dengue was the sole cause of those 27 deaths or the mosquito-borne disease exacerbated the pre-existing medical conditions of those cases.

He said one couldn`t rule out the possibility of dengue or other condition being the probablecause ofthose deaths.

The of ficial said that among the people killed by dengue were a drug addict and a tetanus patient about whom it could be said with certainty that the cause of their deaths was not dengue.

He however said regarding other cases, which had dengue and other complications at the same time, it was very difficult to establish what really caused their deaths.

The official said in some cases, dengue might have complicated the `associative conditions` to a point leading to the deaths of patients.

He however claimed that the monetary compensation offered to the families of the people killed by dengue was another reason for the reporting of higher incidence of the mosquito-borne disease.

The of ficial said the provincial govern-ment had provided Rs500,000 to the f amilies of the people killed by dengue as compensation.

`It is possible that in some cases, doctors might have placed the people died of other illness among dengue cases just to give monetary benefits to some poor people,` he said.

The official said they had uncovered duplication of 779 patients among those, who received anti-dengue treatment, and also sifted indoor patient records from across the province to find out that 779 patients got themselves registered with more than one health centres as dengue cases.

He said the main reason for duplication was the provision of free diagnostic facilities provided by the health department.

The official said many among dengue patients just started visiting health facilities to get themselves declared NS1 negative and thus, increasing dengue incidence.