Five dead, 45 infected, with haemorrhagic fever in Pakistan

Nov 28 2005

According to health officials in Pakistan, haemorrhagic fever has killed at least five people, including a woman doctor, and infected around 45 people the country's biggest city of Karachi.

The authorities say that the cause of the death of Yusra Afaq, a doctor in a government-run hospital, last week has been identified as Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever.

Naushad Sheikh, a permanent secretary at the health ministry of southern Sindh province, says the other four deaths, which occurred over the last six weeks, were also caused by haemorrhagic fever but the exact type was still not known.

Karachi is the capital of Sindh province and it is reported that hospitals there have been put on high alert after 45 more cases of haemorrhagic fever were found.

Doctors say headaches and vomiting, followed by bleeding through the nose, mouth and ears are the symptoms of haemorrhagic fevers, and the illness is often accompanied by hepatitis and pulmonary failure.

Shabbir Ahmad Qaimkhani, provincial health minister, says that doctors have been instructed to take special protective measures while dealing with patients after the death of Afaq.

Qaimkhani says that all the patients with haemorrhagic fever are in isolation wards to minimise chances of spread of the disease.

Four people died in the southwestern province of Baluchistan last year because of Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever.

The disease known locally as Congo virus fever, is endemic in parts of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, southern Europe and most of north Africa, and is spread by ticks from animals to humans, or from humans to humans.