Dengue

DENGUE A MENACING DISEASE
Dengue is menacing disease, every monsoon it occupies national TV channels for months together for all the wrong reasons; with the claiming of life of Mr Yash Chopra the great film maker it even displaced Kejariwal & Digvijay from breaking news today.
It was late eighties when disease broke out is in its new AVTAR the Dengue hemorrhagic fever in India on a large scale. Surat was one of the first few places which suffered its initial onslaught. It remained confined to limited areas till nineties but there after it has engulfed the whole country this year it has been particularly extensive across the nation.

Despite yearly outbreaks people at large has couldn’t careless attitude towards this menace. People expect municipal corporations particularly health authorities to deal with the problem. Aedes Agypti the vector which transmit dengue viruses to human beings is a highly domesticated mosquito. It has certain characteristics which makes them difficult to control leave aside elimination.

Female Aedes feels very hungry in a hot and humid climate the one which prevails during September & October, it needs five to eight human blood meals for its egg laying, in the bargain infected mosquito would transmit Dengee viruses and to many people there by spreading disease like wild fire across the city.
Unlike anopheles the malaria mosquito which feeds primarily during night hours, Aedes bite during day time and thereby makes our barrier systems like mosquito net, and repellents redundant.
Besides homes, school & working places like offices etc are also the common places where this mosquito spreads the disease.

What should be done to overcome the problem?
Aedes Agypti like to lay their eggs in clean & stagnant water, if we take due precautions we can avoid mosquitoes access to egg laying.

(1) Mosquitoes have great liking for black surface their first choice is our Overhead big black water storage tanks, if tank lid is loose not tightly closed then mosquitoes can enter these tanks and lay their eggs there; keeping our overhead tanks tightly closed is very important preventive measure.

(2) Water plants like money plant is next important egg laying site; it is advisable not to keep water plants; empty the pot & clean it thoroughly every third day if you wish to keep water plant. Similar precautions to be observed if you keep big decorative earthen pot in your garden.

(3) During monsoon there may be water pools in and around your home, school or working place; fill up such pools with clay or put kerosene oil that will kill eggs.

(4) Water storing pots should always be kept tightly covered, should be vacated at least every third day and thoroughly cleaned, water interface should be particularly be wiped dry.

(5) Dress your children with full sleeves shirts & pants particularly when they go to play in lawns & gardens.
It is imperative that every citizen understands the disease transmission and does every bit to reduce it, which is the only way we could defeat this disease.

Fever

“Sir it is my 3rd visit in last two days yet fever continues: educated mom complaint with tears in her eyes”.

Two days back she came for an emergency visit child was sent back home with a prescription of Paracetamol, next day morning she revisited, child was investigated, and it was a simple viral fever she was advised to keep patience, yet she was back to me with more anxiety.

This is a usual phenomenon, an everyday problem.

A layman feels that fever is the disease but that is not true, fever is not a disease it could be sign of Malaria, Typhoid, pneumonia, flu etc..; in other words fever is a sign of some disease and not a disease itself.

Whenever a microbe (Germ) invades child’s body fever appears; there are scientific proofs that this increased body temperature helps in clearing offending germs from the human body. In other words in majority of cases fever is a body reaction to germs which perform a friendly act against disease producing microbes.

Unfortunately parent’s mind has a tremendous fever phobia, they feel that elevated body temperature is harmful to their child and at any cost they want it to decrease, in the bargain they tend to over treat child with fever medicines, demand for harmful medicines and resort to cold sponging; all of these things are not only necessary but many a times downright harmful.

When I ask them what are you scared of, the commonest answer is brain damage. Fever per se never cause brain damage unless it is too high. Too high is more than 105 which a very rare occurrence; in my pediatricians’ career spanning over 37yeras it has occurred just five times. Most of the time body has mechanism to balance fever; it would not let it go to a harmful level.

There are certain children who may have fit with fever but they are different lot and not every child is going to react same way.
Over all fever is not harmful and this phobia is out of place, moreover it is the disease which is damaging and not the fever, for example 1010F fever of Falciparum malaria (Zehari malaria) could be many fold more dangerous than 1040F of Vivax malaria (Sado malaria).

Fever medicines (crocin, metacin, calpol) only decrease the fever, they cannot eradicate it; unless a disease is cured by specific medicines fever is going to continue in child‘s body for few days, in case of viral fevers medicines hardly work however body’s own immunity gets over the problem within few days, till then one has to keep patience, and do not have to behave as if fever is a DEMON.