Dengue fever kills 23 in Pakistan

KARACHI: Twenty-three people have died and more than 1,000 been infected in a month-long outbreak of dengue fever, Pakistan health chiefs said on Thursday.

The latest casualties were an 11-year-old boy and a girl of eight who died of the mosquito-borne virus in a children's hospital in the southern port city of Karachi earlier this week, the government of Sindh province said.

"The death toll is now 23, with 20 in Karachi, while over 1,000 cases have been reported so far in Sindh province this month," provincial spokesman Salahuddin Haider said.

"It's deadly and has hit Karachi badly with hospitals full of dengue fever patients, but the government has provided machines to carry out a massive spray in the city," Haider said.

Authorities in the capital Islamabad and nearby Rawalpindi have also issued public advice for preventing the spread of the female Aedes mosquitos that carry the virus.