Cabinet Committee on dengue reviews preventive measures

Lahore: A meeting of cabinet committee on dengue held on Monday under the chairmanship of Advisor to Chief Minister on Health Khawaja Salman Rafiq at civil secretariat.

Besides elected representatives, Secretary Specialized Healthcare and Medical Education Najam Ahmad Shah, Secretary Primary and Secondary Health Ali Jan Khan, DG Health Dr. Mukhtar Hussain Syed, senior officer of all the concerned departments, Dean Institute of Public Health (IPH) Prof. Moaz Ahmad, Incharge Chief Minister Dengue Research Cell Prof. Wasim Akram attended the meeting. Commissioners Gujranwala, Faisalabad, Rawalpindi and Multan participated in the meeting through video link.

The meeting was informed that during current season, six confirmed dengue patients were reported out of which one each belonged to  Faisalabad and Sheikhupura whereas two each patients from Rawalpindi and Attock, were reported. All the patients have recovered and discharged from the hospitals.

Additional Director General Dengue Control Programme Dr. Fayyaz Butt further informed that case response has been carried out in the vicinities of the patients residences. He further informed that three dengue patients from Saudi Arabia and two from Malaysia were also reached Punjab, they too have been recovered and discharged from the hospitals.

All the officers of concerned departments briefed the meeting regarding the steps taken by their departments for dengue control. Punjab Information Technology Board and the officers from Special Branch pointed out the sore points in the dengue surveillance activities related to the various departments/ agencies.

Khawaja Salman Rafiq issued instructions to the officers concerned to remove the gaps pointed out by the special branch at the operational level. Khawaja Salman Rafiq revealed that dengue control model of Punjab is a successful model which has been appreciated by the international experts. He appreciated the efforts of all the government departments to control the dengue and advised them to continue their vigorous indoor and outdoor dengue surveillance activities.

Khawaja Salman Rafiq directed that blood samples of probable and confirmed dengue patients must be sent to IPH for analysis. He said that recommendations/ proposals have been sought from all the concerned departments regarding dengue SOPs 2014 so that these SOPs could be upgraded according to the needs. A letter has been sent to all the concerned departments in this regard, he added.