PESHAWAR: Fourteen cases of the chikungunya virus have been reported in the northwestern Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the last one week, health officials said, bringing the total tally of cases to 28 for the year 2024.
Chikungunya virus spreads to people through the bite of an infected mosquito. The most common symptoms of infection are fever and joint pain. Other symptoms may include headache, muscle pain, joint swelling or a rash.
The health department in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, of which Peshawar is the capital, ordered preventive measures in September this year after more than a dozen cases of chikungunya were reported in Mansehra district.
“In the past one week, we have received at least 14 cases of chikungunya in the Shamshato Camp of the Ormur neighborhood in Peshawar,” the spokesperson for the Public Health Department, Atta Ullah, told Arab News on Monday. “Total 28 cases of chikungunya have been reported in 2024.”
Habib Ullah Safi, whose 11-year-old daughter had the virus, said she experienced “pains and high temperature.”
“When the tests were conducted, we came to know that she had this disease,” he told Arab News, saying the symptoms continued for at least 5 days but his daughter was feeling well now.
“Chikungunya isn’t a new disease for us, it was a notifiable disease and once we got the reports we timely approached and responded,” Dr. Arsalan Manzoor, a surveillance officer for the chikungunya virus in Peshawar, told Arab News.
“On the instruction of the health department, we immediately went to Shamshato Camp of Ormur and collected the samples and more cases were reported.”
He said a “large number of larvae” had been identified in the locality and awareness sessions were thus conducted “to sensitise locals about prevention.”
“After several visits to the locality, we also held a free medical camp last week,” Manzoor added.
KP province reported 4,034 dengue cases this year with three death, while 747 dengue cases were reported in 2023 and no deaths.
Manzoor explained that chikungunya symptoms were similar to dengue but milder.
“Chikungunya patient recovers a bit better than dengue,” he said. “It takes 4 to 7 days to recover from chikungunya while dengue recovery can take up to two weeks even.”
28 cases of chikungunya virus reported in northwest Pakistan in 2024 — officials
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28 cases of chikungunya virus reported in northwest Pakistan in 2024 — officials
- Chikungunya virus spreads to people through bite of an infected mosquito
- Fourteen cases of chikungunya reported in Peshawar in the last one week
‘Look ahead or look up?’: Pakistan’s police face new challenge as militants take to drone warfare
- Officials say militants are using weapons and equipment left behind after allied forces withdrew from Afghanistan
- Police in northwest Pakistan say electronic jammers have helped repel more than 300 drone attacks since mid-2025
BANNU, Pakistan: On a quiet morning last July, Constable Hazrat Ali had just finished his prayers at the Miryan police station in Pakistan’s volatile northwest when the shouting began.
His colleagues in Bannu district spotted a small speck in the sky. Before Ali could take cover, an explosion tore through the compound behind him. It was not a mortar or a suicide vest, but an improvised explosive dropped from a drone.
“Now should we look ahead or look up [to sky]?” said Ali, who was wounded again in a second drone strike during an operation against militants last month. He still carries shrapnel scars on his back, hand and foot, physical reminders of how the battlefield has shifted upward.
For police in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, the fight against militancy has become a three-dimensional conflict. Pakistani officials say armed groups, including the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), are increasingly deploying commercial drones modified to drop explosives, alongside other weapons they say were acquired after the US military withdrawal from neighboring Afghanistan.
Security analysts say the trend mirrors a wider global pattern, where low-cost, commercially available drones are being repurposed by non-state actors from the Middle East to Eastern Europe, challenging traditional policing and counterinsurgency tactics.
The escalation comes as militant violence has surged across Pakistan. Islamabad-based Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS) reported a 73 percent rise in combat-related deaths in 2025, with fatalities climbing to 3,387 from 1,950 a year earlier. Militants have increasingly shifted operations from northern tribal belts to southern KP districts such as Bannu, Lakki Marwat and Dera Ismail Khan.
“Bannu is an important town of southern KP, and we are feeling the heat,” said Sajjad Khan, the region’s police chief. “There has been an enormous increase in the number of incidents of terrorism… It is a mix of local militants and Afghan militants.”
In 2025 alone, Bannu police recorded 134 attacks on stations, checkpoints and personnel. At least 27 police officers were killed, while authorities say 53 militants died in the clashes. Many assaults involved coordinated, multi-pronged attacks using heavy weapons.
Drones have also added a new layer of danger. What began as reconnaissance tools have been weaponized with improvised devices that rely on gravity rather than guidance systems.
“Earlier, they used to drop [explosives] in bottles. After that, they started cutting pipes for this purpose,” said Jamshed Khan, head of the regional bomb disposal unit. “Now we have encountered a new type: a pistol hand grenade.”
When dropped from above, he explained, a metal pin ignites the charge on impact.
Deputy Superintendent of Police Raza Khan, who narrowly survived a drone strike during construction at a checkpoint, described devices packed with nails, bullets and metal fragments.
“They attach a shuttlecock-like piece on top. When they drop it from a height, its direction remains straight toward the ground,” he said.
TARGETING CIVILIANS
Officials say militants’ rapid adoption of drone technology has been fueled by access to equipment on informal markets, while police procurement remains slower.
“It is easy for militants to get such things,” Sajjad Khan said. “And for us, I mean, we have to go through certain process and procedures as per rules.”
That imbalance began to shift in mid-2025, when authorities deployed electronic anti-drone systems in the region. Before that, officers relied on snipers or improvised nets strung over police compounds.
“Initially, when we did not have that anti-drone system, their strikes were effective,” the police chief said, adding that more than 300 attempted drone attacks have since been repelled or electronically disrupted. “That was a decisive moment.”
Police say militants have also targeted civilians, killing nine people in drone attacks this year, often in communities accused of cooperating with authorities. Several police stations suffered structural damage.
Bannu’s location as a gateway between Pakistan and Afghanistan has made it a security flashpoint since colonial times. But officials say the aerial dimension of the conflict has placed unprecedented strain on local forces.
For constables like Hazrat Ali, new technology offers some protection, but resolve remains central.
“Nowadays, they have ammunition and all kinds of the most modern weapons. They also have large drones,” he said. “When we fight them, we fight with our courage and determination.”
