ISLAMABAD, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- Dengue fever cases continued to surge in Pakistan amid an outbreak blamed primarily on floods triggered by heavy monsoon rains in the South Asian country.

In the last 24 hours, two more patients died in southern Sindh province while 324 new infections were reported, said the provincial health department on Thursday evening. The worst-hit area was Karachi, the provincial capital, which reported 280 new cases.

With the newly reported dengue cases, the September figure to date for the province has risen to 6,927, bringing the local total tally to 9,496 together with 37 deaths this year.

In the last 24 hours, 342 more people were diagnosed with the disease in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, the provincial health department reported on Thursday night. The number of active cases in the province currently stands at 1,685 and the total number of cases this year has reached 8,070.

The eastern Punjab province reported 245 new cases in the last 24 hours, the provincial health authorities said on Thursday. Punjab's capital Lahore reported 115 new cases, followed by Rawalpindi city with 45 cases. The total number of dengue cases in Punjab this year has now gone up to 5,981.

The Pakistani government has launched an anti-dengue campaign including raising public awareness in response to the alarmingly high number of cases in the country and has taken special measures at the dengue hotspots to curb the spread of the mosquito-borne disease. Enditem

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