ISLAMABAD: Islamabad reported spike in number of dengue fever cases on Friday. Another patient died of the dengue hemorrhagic fever at the PolyClinic Hospital. As many as 174 people were diagnosed with the virus during the previous 24 hours. District Health Officer Dr Zaeem Zia said this in a Twitter statement. Of them, 110 were reported from rural areas and 64 from urban areas. “Our teams are busy responding to both epidemic and a [Covid] pandemic at the same time,” he said. A total of 2,603 people have contracted the virus in Islamabad this season with rural areas seeing 1,589 cases and urban 1,014 cases. Ten patients have died because of this disease. Dengue isolation wards have been set up at four public sector hospitals, including PIMS, Poly Clinic, Federal General Hospital and CDA Hospital. 137 patients of dengue fever are being treated in these hospitals at present. Separately, 3,419 samples were tested for Covid-19 in the capital in the past 24 hours, leading to the emergence of 44 new cases. Infection rate was recorded at 1.29 per cent.