PESHAWAR: The coronavirus-related mortalities and incidence continue to slump in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, except Peshawar and Mardan, but cases of dengue fever are on the rise in the province, according to separate reports issued by health department on Thursday.

The province recorded 10 fatalities and 146 new coronavirus patients, raising the overall tally of deaths and cases in the province to 5,623 and 175,358 respectively.

Seven of the new deaths occurred in Peshawar and three in Mardan. Both the districts diagnosed 59 and 16 fresh patients, respectively. Infectivity level in all high-risk districts has come down below three per cent except Peshawar where it is 6.6 per cent. Bed occupancy in the provincial capital is 32 per cent.

Mardan with 3.3 per cent Covid-19 positivity level has 23 per cent bed occupancy.

The district continues to register mortalities from the pandemic. It recorded the first death of the country due to the pandemic in April last year. It has so far reported 537 mortalities, second after Peshawar’s 2,682.

10 more deaths and 146 new coronavirus cases recorded

Officials said that the process of vaccination was also slow in Mardan.

The province’s recovery from the infectious ailment has also been showing downtrend for the last two week. So far, 165,865 infected people (94 per cent), including 220 patients recorded during the last 24 hours, have recovered from the disease.

According to report, there are 3,878 active coronavirus patients in the province including 996 in Kohat, 956 in Peshawar, 540 in Mardan, 225 in Bannu, 202 in Nowshera and 133 in Chitral Lower.

It said that a total of 11079 suspected patients were tested during the last 24 hours. The number of hospitalised patients due to Covid-19 has gone down to 740 compared to 1,100 a week before.

Officials said that the declining number of Covid-19 cases was result of vaccination and adherence to standard operating procedures (SOPs) by the people. “However, we still need to accelerate the pace of vaccination in Peshawar, Mardan and Swat,” they added.

They said that Bannu district was another hotspot of the virus with two per cent Covid-19 infectivity rate where bed occupancy was 37 per cent, the highest in the province.

Dengue fever is another public health issue that haunts people in most of the districts, especially in Peshawar, Nowshera, Buner, Mansehra, Khyber, Nowshera and Swabi, which have recorded 573, 349, 234, 162, 177, 121 and 137 cases, respectively.

So far, four persons, two from Khyber and one each from Mansehra and Nowshera, have passed away due to dengue fever. The province has registered 2,152 confirmed dengue cases during the last one month, according to a health department report.

A total of 16,185 suspected patients have been tested so far. During the 24 hours, 268 new dengue cases have been reported. There are 937 active cases in the province.

A total of 1,215 patients have recovered from the mosquito-borne ailment. There are 198 hospitalised patients due to dengue fever in the province, mostly in Peshawar, Abbottabad, Swat and Swabi.

Officials at the Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response System (IDSRS) of the Directorate-General Health Services, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, said that they had been carrying out awareness campaigns in all affected districts regarding preventive measures along with fumigation to put brakes on transmission of the seasonal flu.

Sehat Sahulat Programme (SSP) has also included dengue in its list of free treatment to provide cashless treatment to the patients in all designated hospitals.

Published in Dawn, October 8th, 2021