LAHORE: The dengue fever continued to take a heavy toll as it claimed 18 more lives during the last 24 hours in Punjab, making it the highest figure reported so far in a day across the province.

       The medical and public health experts warned that the number of critical dengue patients, particularly those with critically low platelets, continued to increase at an alarming rate in Punjab.

       They said the High Dependency Units (HDUs) of the hospitals in the province, which were designated for the critical care of dengue patients with complications, were showing the bed occupancy reaching full capacity.

       In Lahore’s major teaching hospitals HDUs the bed occupancy has reached almost 80 per cent, while the situation was also not encouraging in the health care facilities of other major cities like Rawalpindi, Multan, Bahwalpur etc.

       The official data showed 508 more people tested positive for the virus in Punjab during last 24 hours, taking the total number to 5,709.

       Of them, 373 new positive cases were reported from Lahore, 59 from Rawalpindi, 10 from Faisalabad and 8 from Nankana Sahib.

       Similarly, seven each dengue patients were reported in Attock and Hafizabad, five in Muzaffargarh, four each in Okara and Toba Tek Singh and three cases each were reported in Bahawalnagar, Pakpattan and Sargodha.

       Published in Dawn, October 16th, 2021