Sep 15 2011
"The government in Pakistan's eastern province of Punjab is struggling to control a growing dengue fever epidemic, officials say," and they "have warned that it threatens to affect other parts of the country," BBC News reports. "Punjab Health Secretary Jehanzeb Khan said that this year more than 4,000 cases of dengue fever had been reported, a significant increase over previous years," and at least eight people have died of the disease, according to the news service. Officials "say that the illness is thriving because of poor hygiene, an absence of control measures and the fact that recent heavy monsoon rainfall has lowered temperatures and provided lots of water -- ideal conditions for dengue-carrying mosquitoes," the news service writes (Khan, 9/13).
This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente. |