Guys and Gals, the Dengue season is on in full swing. Urban areas of Sindh and Punjab are worst affected. The disease name itself creates panic among the masses, as the disease is thought to be a highly fatal disease. Every year the disease surges in late autumn season, and hsopitals and clinics report an increasing number of cases.
So you need to understand what this disease is, and how to get yourself safe from this ailment. First of all you need to know that this is caused by a Virus and is transmitted by bite of a special type of Mosquito called Tiger mosquito and its zoological name is Aedes aegypti. A few years ago, Pakistani soil was not the natural habitat of this mosquito, but it got imported in used tyres imported from far East and slowly the mosquito established itself in Pakistan.
Dengue itself causes high grade fever with chills, severe bodyaches, so much strong that you feel as if your bones have been broken. There is also headache, pain behind eyes and vomiting. This happens in most of cases however in a few cases, it can cause Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever in which the virus depletes the platelets in your blood, which is responsible for keeping blood inside your small sized blood vessels as these platelets plus smalls holes and gaps appearing spontaneously in these blood vessels. If these platelets go down a lot, then blood cannot stay inside the small blodd vessels and oozes out from these vessels into the internal organs, which is called internal hemorrhages. This leads to pink or purple spots on your skin and can also lead to blood in vomiting, urine and stools. In severe cases this can lead to death.
However you need to know that treatment is supportive as there is no known treatment for this virus anywhere in the world. The severe cases are treated by whole blood transfusion, frsh frozen plasma or platelet concentrates as well as intravenous fluids.
Prevention is the best option. Since it is mostly an urban and semi urban disease so people living in big cities like Karachi, Hyderabad, Lahore and Multan need to be more careful. Outdoors always use long sleeved clothes. Women should not use sleeveless shirts if going out in outdoor ceremonies at evening. Mosquito repellants of a good brand must be used. Indoors one should use insecticide treated bednets, and get their homes sprayed with indoor residual spraying with Deltamethrin, an insecticide available at most agricultural products shops. Look around your homes for all areas where fresh water or rain water has accumulated and get rid of them.
In case you get fever with severe bodyaches, do consult a doctor who might do certain tests on you like platelet counts and torniquet test to see if Dengue is a possibility. Diagnosed cases must sleep under bed nets so that other dengue mosquitoes cannot bite him. These mosquitoes can take virus from an infected person and then infect other people through their bites.
So there is no need to be scared. Take precautions and enjoy your life. If you need further information, email us and we will give you more detailed information.
