War against dengue will continue:Secretary Health Punjab

Lahore: Private hospitals would extend all possible cooperation to the government for providing free treatment facilities to the dengue patients, if needed.

This assurance was given by the representatives of private hospitals administration in a meeting, chaired by , Arif Nadeem, here today. The meeting was attended by a large number of private hospitals owners and their representatives. Special Assistant to Chief Minister on Health, Kh. Salman Rafique was also present on the occasion. Additional Director General Vector Born Disease Dr. Jaffar Ilyas, gave briefing regarding present dengue situation, government arrangements and on other related issues. He urged the administration of private hospitals to send complete data of suspected, probable and conformed patients of dengue to Punjab Health Department, and also upload this data to the dash board directly, so that foolproof disease surveillance could be carried out.

Secretary Health Arif Nadeem, while appreciating the services of private hospitals, rendered during the previous dengue epidemic, said that last year private hospitals had offered full cooperation to the government for free treatment of dengue patients. He hoped that private hospitals would extend full cooperation on humanitarian grounds and if, God forbid the dengue epidemic occurred. He observed that presently situation is far better than the last year, as government has made adequate arrangements and strict vector and disease surveillance was carried out. Secretary Health said that a linkage would be established with the private hospitals to shift dengue hemorrhagic patients to the tertiary-care hospitals through ambulances. On this occasion, the representatives of private hospitals were briefed regarding the dengue patient’s case management and diagnostic procedure through multi media.