Dengue Fever: Don’t ignore the Symptoms

By in Internal Medicine

Aug 17, 2017

Dengue (pronounced as DENG-gay), is also known by break bone fever or dandy fever. Dengue fever is transmitted by AEDES AEGYPTI mosquito and is provoked by one of the four dengue viruses. Once if a person gets infected with one of the dengue viruses, the person will establish immunity to that virus for the rest of their life. It is acceptable for a person to get affected by all the 4 dengue viruses in his/her lifetime. Dengue fever viruses are analogous to those viruses which cause yellow fever and West Nile virus infection.

In India fewer than 1 million of dengue cases get reported every year. The national capital has encountered 9 deaths and 1,150 dengue cases last year as reported by AIIMS, Delhi. According to National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme (NVBDCP), about 27,879 cases of people suffering from dengue and 60 deaths were reported all across the country till 31st August, 2016.

A relentless epidemic of dengue occurred in Delhi in the year 1996, when nearly 10,252 cases of people suffering from dengue fever and 423 deaths from dengue fever got proclaimed.

According to World Health Organization there are about 400 million of dengue fever cases all around the world and 96 million requires medical treatment. WHO also estimated that nearly 22,000 deaths occur every year and mostly among children.

Dengue fever is not a contagious in nature as it doesn’t gets transmitted from person to person. Dengue fever is disseminated by the bite of the mosquito nurturing the dengue virus.

Symptoms of dengue generally start about 4 to 7 days after the original infection. In several cases the symptoms are mild and hence are mistaken for the symptoms of flu or some other infection. Dengue fever is an intense syndrome of unusual outbreak that generally follows a benign course with indications like fever, headache, feeling of exhaustion, severe pain in the muscle and joints, swollen lymph nodes and rashes over the whole body. Bleeding gums, red palms and soles, extreme pain behind the eyes, are the other rare characteristic of dengue.

In certain cases dengue fever can further gets more serious and turns into a serious and complicated diseases called hemorrhagic fever. Hemorrhagic fever is a very rare disease which is characterized by: lymphatic system damage, enlargement of liver, failure of circulatory system, damaging of blood vessels.

Further dengue hemorrhagic fever provokes dengue shock disease, which is a very serious disorder and can leads to excessive bleeding and death also.

There are no specific medications for the treatment of dengue infections, but pain relievers can be used to reduce down the fever, headache and joint pains. Ibuprofen and aspirin should be avoided as much as possible as they can cause more bleeding.

There is no such vaccination that can prevent dengue but our government is still working on it. Other several ways can be adopted for the prevention for the disease like: using mosquito repellent cream indoors and outdoors, prefer wearing long sleeves shirt and pants, using of mosquito nets while sleeping if required.