No Dengue-related deaths in Lahore

Staff Report

LAHORE: There have been no Dengue-related deaths in the city, and the National Institute of Health (NIH) has tested one sample from Lahore, which was found not to have the Dengue virus, Daily Times learnt on Saturday.

NIH officials said that they had tested 324 samples from around the country, of which 150 had tested positive, 109 had tested negative and 65 samples were still being tested. NIH Executive Director Shahid Akhtar said that the institute received one sample from Lahore, which tested negative for the Dengue virus. “The sample, which came from Lahore General Hospital, was found to have no traces of the Dengue virus,” he said, adding that hospital administrations from around the country had been sending samples to the NIH that they could not test properly. He said that when there are no clear obvious symptoms of Dengue, only then were samples referred to the NIH.

He said that 128 samples were received from Karachi, out of which 77 tested positive while out of the 61 samples from Islamabad, 21 tested positive for Dengue. In addition, 39 of the 89 samples received from Rawalpindi had tested positive, while two samples were received from Peshawar and one from Abbotabad, all of which had also tested positive for Dengue. Four of the 11 samples received from Kotli had tested positive, while three out of the 21 samples from Chakwal had tested positive. Meanwhile, according to a press release issued by the Shaikh Zayed Hospital, two patients who died in the hospital were not diagnosed with Dengue fever. A hospital spokesperson said that there were four suspected cases at the hospital and blood samples from all four had been sent for testing.

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