Fresh SOPs issued for Karachi schools amid rising dengue, malaria cases

KARACHI: Schools across Karachi have been asked to adopt new SOPs to deal with rising dengue and malaria cases, suspending assembly sessions for a month, ARY NEWS reported.

According to new SOPs issued by commissioner Karachi for schools, the PT and assembly sessions in all public and private educational institutes will remain suspended for a month.

As per the fresh guidelines, the students will be bound to wear full sleeve shirts while schools will be bound to conduct fumigation drive on a regular basis to deal with dengue and malaria spread.

The schools are also directed to hold awareness sessions regarding the spread of the vector-borne diseases.

Cases of dengue virus continue to witness sharp increase in Sindh including Karachi as the provincial capital has registered as many as 192 more cases of the vector-borne viral disease on Friday.

According to the provincial health ministry, district Korangi remained the most affected with 63 cases reported in a day, followed by 45 cases from district East, 35 cases were reported from district South, 26 from district Central, 14 from Malir and six and three cases respectively from Keamari and West.

The provincial health department has so far reported 1,620 dengue fever cases in the ongoing month in Karachi with annual tally crossing 3,287.

The other parts of the Sindh province that are hit by devastating floods have reported 4,320 cases during the ongoing year.

Sindh government has claimed to have taken measures for dealing with dengue fever in the province after most of the province is under flood water while urban centres have also received record rainfall during the monsoon spell.