ISLAMABAD, Jan. 19 (Xinhua) -- At least 35 people have been killed after suffering from influenza and seasonal flu in Pakistan's east Punjab Province over the last one month, officials said Friday.
The province's Multan, Rahim Yar Khan and Bahawalpur districts were the worst-hit areas where all the fatalities were reported and hospitals received scores of people affected with the disease since December last year.
In Multan, 106 cases of influenza have been confirmed in the reported period, while 24 patients under treatment in the city's Nishtar Hospital have died, Pakistan's official news agency APP reported.
The death toll is feared to rise as at least ten more people are in a critical condition in the hospital.
A total of five people were killed in Rahim Yar Khan whereas six people including five women died of the contagious disease in Bahawalpur, the report added.
Hospitals in both of the districts are still treating 11 seriously infected people.
Chief Minister of Punjab Shahbaz Sharif has ordered hospital administration to provide best available medical treatment to the infected people. He also directed health authorities to carry out awareness programs about the disease.
Health department said that most of the people who got killed by influenza were suffering from other diseases and flu only worsened their condition.
Talking to Xinhua, Rizwan ul Haq, an ENT specialist in Islamabad, said that persistent dry weather, lack of awareness and lack of health facilities are the basic causes of the epidemic outbreak in Multan.
"People with compromised health became victims of the disease. Flu is a contagious disease and people do not take care of their hygiene, they do not wear masks and protect themselves of cold weather, which worsens the disease," he said.
The disease has created an overall situation of panic in the country and people from across the country are heading towards hospitals to get the influenza vaccine.
A pharmacist at the Shifa International Hospital here told Xinhua that a manifold increase has been witnessed in the sale of the influenza vaccine over the last one month, in the wake of the outbreak of the epidemic in Multan.
