Eight cases of Dengue reported in Madhya Pradesh, India

Health alert

Six cases of dengue have been detected in Jabalpur district of Madhya Pradesh. Barella area of Jabalpur district in the Central Indian state had reported 19 deaths till early September in twenty five days. Hundreds of patients had complained of vomiting, diarrhea, and frequent bowel movements and fever. It was suspected that it was due to some water borne infections. But later on a team of National Institute of Virology (NIV) Pune had visited Jabalpur four days ago and had collected13 blood samples out of which 8 have been tested positive of dengue. The team has collected 70 more samples and would be testing them for the same. Officials deny any death cases. Out of the eight tested positive of dengue six are from Jabalpur and rest one each from Narsinghpur and Hoshangabad. Last year in October Madhya Pradesh had reported seven more cases of dengue fever, though officials had denied any deaths but media sources had reported three deaths in the state.

Dengue is acute fever caused by virus and which spreads by the bite of an infected mosquito Aedes aegypti. The mosquito gets the virus by biting the infected persons, but there is no way to tell that if mosquito is carrying dengue and mosquitoes which spread dengue live and breed in and around houses. Dengue occurs in two forms i.e. Dengue Fever and Dengue Haemorrhagic Fever. Dengue fever is marked by the onset of sudden high fever, severe headache and pain behind the eyes, muscles and joints. Dengue Haemorrhagic fever (DHF) is a more severe form, in which bleeding and sometimes shock occurs – leading to death. It is most serious in children. Since it is spread by mosquito and the mosquito breds in and around houses as precaution, experts say that do not allow water to remain collected in and around houses like coolers, drums, buckets etc. All stored water containers should be kept covered all the time, and discard solid waste and objects where water collects, e.g. bottles, tins, tyres, etc. As per WHO web site Dengue is of the most important resurgent tropical infectious diseases and is one of the most important emerging diseases affecting nearly half of the world’s population. It is estimated that there are between 50 and 100 million cases of dengue fever and about 500,000 cases of Dengue haemorrhagic fever that require hospitalization each year.