LAHORE - CM’s Adviser on Health Kh Salman Rafiq has constituted a team comprising senior clinicians for submitting detailed report of surfacing Congo virus in Bahawalpur.
All contacts of Congo fever patients have been kept in isolation ward. These people will remain under surveillance during the incubating period of Congo virus for checking the spread of virus to other patients.
The advisor chaired a meeting at Civil Secretariat yesterday to review the situation. Secretary Specialized Healthcare & Medical Education Najam Ahmad Shah, Special Secretary Dr Sajid Mahmood Chauhan, Additional Secretary (Tech) Dr Salman Shahid, Director General Health Dr Mukhtar Hussain Syed and the officers of Communicable Disease Control Programme attended the meeting.
The Health DG informed the meeting that a student nurse of DHQ Hospital Lodhran was admitted to BVH Bahawalpur with complaint of severe abdominal pain, operated but she did not survive.
After four days, surgeon Dr Saghir was admitted in a private hospital of Karachi with symptoms of hemorrhagic fever which was later diagnosed as Congo fever. After that a house surgeon also developed same symptoms.
The DG further informed that after confirmation of Congo fever in both the doctors, an alert has been issued in district Lodhran and Bahawalpur. The health teams have quarantined all contacts of the student nurse and the doctors.
Moreover, medical teams of WHO and Health Department are monitoring the situation and blood samples of the isolated people have been sent to National Institute of Health (NIH) Islamabad. Health Department has advised doctors and nurses to wear Personal Protective Gears (PPG) which are available in hospital in sufficient numbers, during the treatment of Congo patients if any.