Islamabad, Nov 6 (TIWN) Dengue outbreak has claimed 66 lives and affected over 44,000 people in Pakistan this year .

In 2011, 27,000 people were affected by the disease, but the number of mortalities was almost six times higher, as compared to the current year, as 370 persons died.

Talking to Dawn, the chief of the Disease Surveillance Division at the National Institute of Health, Dr Rana Safdar, has said that during the current year an unprecedented number of dengue cases were reported across the globe. He claimed that Pakistan has performed much better as compared to other countries.

He said he recently attended a meeting in Atlanta, United States, which discussed the issue of dengue outbreak, adding that representatives of a number of countries in the meeting praised the performance of the Pakistan government and asked that the country’s experience of controlling the disease be documented.