Punjab Health Minister Dr. Yasmin Rashid has warned of increasing number of dengue cases and has appealed people to remain vigilant about dengue breeding sites in their surroundings. Addressing a press briefing at Benazir Bhutto Shaheed Hospital, the Health Minister said that although dengue has not evolved into an epidemic so far, yet there is need for extreme vigilance and caution. Besides civil administration government department, every citizen will have to ensure elimination of dengue larva. Present on the occasion were Vice Chancellor Rawalpindi Medical University Dr. Omar and other officials. The Health Minister said that in allied hospitals of Rawalpindi, currently 49 patients were under treatment and six new cases were reported in the last 24 hours. She said Dengue outbreak emerged in 2019 in Rawalpindi and the government had since then been planning to ensure that a similar situation does not arise again. The Health Minister said, “In the current year, 15 meetings at provincial level on dengue control have been held and the government has been constantly reviewing the situation. We are making efforts for polio eradication and due to successful campaigns no polio cases have been reported this year. Even our environmental samples in endemic have been negative recently. Only Pakistan and Afghanistan are the remaining two countries having Polio cases. If Pakistan does not report any polio case for three consecutive years, it will be declared polio free as well.” Elaborating the Corona situation, the Health Minister said that the fourth wave of the Pandemic was on the decline as Punjab had reported 880 cases in the last 24 hours. After recent increase, the number of beds reserved for COVID-19 had reached 50%. More than 400,000 people were being vaccinated on daily basis. So far more than 50 million have been vaccinated in the province. We have set a target of vaccination of at least 70 per cent population by the end of the current year.” The Health Minister said that 29.3 families of the province shall be provided health cards by the end of the current year and only NADRA registered families shall be able to avail the facility. To a question, Dr. Yasmin Rashid responded that 33 departments were engaged in dengue surveillance and third party audit of their performance was regularly conducted and private labs have been informed to report cases. To another question, the Health Minister said that DG Khan Institute of cardiology, Mianwali Mother and Child Hospital and Nishter-II Multan were going to going to be functional very soon as they were near completion. She said the Pakistan Kidney and Liver Institute had carried out 87 Liver Transplants so far.