Karachi, Sep 12 (PTI) At least seven people have died of dengue fever in the last 24 hours across Karachi, at a time when water-borne diseases have taken a vice-like grip over the country devastated by the ravaging floods, according to a media report on Monday.

Dengue is a vector-borne disease spread through mosquito bites.

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A report issued by the provincial health department on Monday said that in the last 24 hours, 113 new dengue cases were reported in Sindh province, out of which 107 were from Karachi, the Dawn newspaper reported.

Karachi Administrator Murtaza Wahab said that fumigation sprays were being carried out against dengue and malaria in various districts of Karachi as after the heavy rains and flooding such water-borne diseases were spreading, the report said.

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“But dengue fever is preventable and the health department is working round the clock to counter the situation,” Wahab said.

Pakistan has reported a sharp rise in the dengue cases, following the heavy rains and floods in many parts of the country.

Health officials are scrambling to prevent it from turning into an epidemic, as hospitals across Karachi are flooded with dengue patients, the report said.

“Already in the rural areas of Sindh and Balochistan, there have been dozens of cases of people including children from dengue fever,” the report quoted a health official as saying.

Dow Hospital's Medical Superintendent (MS) Dr Zahid Azam said although dengue patients were reporting in large numbers, so far there was no mortality at the hospital.

“We are daily getting 40 to 50 patients for admission out of whom eight are admitted to the intensive care unit [ICU] while the rest are discharged in a day or two and these cases are followed up in clinics,” he told the Dawn newspaper.

The current floods triggered by monsoon rains have so far killed nearly 1,400 people and injured another 12,728, while damaging 6,674 km of road and destroying over 1.7 million houses.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)