
Pakistan: Hospitals overflowing with dengue fever epidemic
Pakistan: Hospitals overflowing with dengue fever epidemic
A surge of dengue fever has swept Pakistan's economic hub, Karachi, and the surrounding region in recent weeks with hospitals unable to cope with the volume of patients. Many patients had beds set up outside Karachi's Abbasi Shaheed Hospital on Friday as wards were cordoned off to provide emergency care to dengue fever patients.
A total of 841 dengue cases have been reported in Sindh province so far, with most cases reported in the provincial capital Karachi. Transmitted by the bite of the female mosquito, the illness has claimed 10 lives in Karachi so far in 2013.
Officials and health experts fear more fatalities in the absence of an effective control programme, with the epidemic peaking in the continuing monsoon season. According to the World Health Organisation, dengue is the world's fastest-spreading tropical disease, infecting an estimated 50 to 100 million people worldwide every year.

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Pakistan: Hospitals overflowing with dengue fever epidemic
A surge of dengue fever has swept Pakistan's economic hub, Karachi, and the surrounding region in recent weeks with hospitals unable to cope with the volume of patients. Many patients had beds set up outside Karachi's Abbasi Shaheed Hospital on Friday as wards were cordoned off to provide emergency care to dengue fever patients.
A total of 841 dengue cases have been reported in Sindh province so far, with most cases reported in the provincial capital Karachi. Transmitted by the bite of the female mosquito, the illness has claimed 10 lives in Karachi so far in 2013.
Officials and health experts fear more fatalities in the absence of an effective control programme, with the epidemic peaking in the continuing monsoon season. According to the World Health Organisation, dengue is the world's fastest-spreading tropical disease, infecting an estimated 50 to 100 million people worldwide every year.