Report puts Pakistan's dengue increase over a decade above 3,000pc

A study reported by The Hawk has put the rise in Pakistan's dengue burden over the past decade at more than 3,000 per cent, a figure that would make the mosquito-borne infection one of the country's fastest-growing health problems if the finding holds.

The outlet carried the finding under the headline "Pakistan's dengue burden surged over 3,000 pc in decade: Study". Its full report could not be retrieved, and the headline account named neither the researchers nor the institution behind the study, the years it covered, nor the data it drew on.

The standfirst on the item credited The Hans India, an Indian newspaper, indicating the report originated there and was carried by The Hawk.

The report did not say whether the 3,000 per cent figure measured confirmed infections, hospital admissions, deaths or a composite measure of illness and cost. It also carried no provincial or district breakdown, so it was not possible to establish from it how Sindh, Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan or Gilgit-Baltistan were affected, or whether the increase was concentrated in particular years.

A percentage increase of that size is calculated against a starting level. The Hawk's account gave neither the baseline figure nor an end-year total, so the number of cases behind the 3,000 per cent figure could not be checked from the report as published.

Nor did the account say whether the study had appeared in a peer-reviewed journal, as a preprint, or as an institutional report.

Dengue in Pakistan is counted by provincial health departments and hospitals, which publish case numbers during the monsoon and post-monsoon months. The Hawk's report did not say which of those counts, if any, the study used.

Without the study itself, the 3,000 per cent figure could not be independently verified. This newspaper has reported it as the outlet published it, with the gaps in the account noted.