Introduction to Dengue :
These days one will find patients suffering from Dengue everywhere. The hospitals beds are occupied with dengue patients. Dengue is a viral disease transmitted by the bite of a particular mosquito known as Aedes Aegypti. When a female mosquito bites the infected person it becomes vector for transferring of the virus and then, ingest virus into the next person. The dangerous part is symptoms can be seen only after 5-6 day of the mosquito bite.
Also, diagnosis of this is possible from various diagnostic laboratories in India only after arrival of symptoms as till then patient is usually unaware of it. Shockingly, till now no medicine or antibiotic is known to cure the dengue fever which occurs in mild and severe fevers. The former type is known as break bone or classical dengue fever and the latter is known as Dengue Haemorrhagic Fever (DHF).
More about Dengue Fever :
Dengue fever lasts for about 7 to 10 days, with symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, headaches, severe joint and muscle pain, fatigue, skin rash, pain behind the eyes etc. It’s estimated that, annually around 390 million infections occur worldwide out of which nearly 96 million result in illness. Considering the seriousness of the outspread of dengue in India, Maharashtra state government has declared dengue as a “notified disease”. So, now health workers can conduct checkups in any premises and on top of that they do not need to have any permission for the same.
Mission Dengue Free India :
Can you recollect few health workers from BMC visited Bollywood actors Anil Kapoor and Juhi Chawala’s houses to find the presence of any open water-bodies which can be breeding sites of mosquito larvae. This time they are taking one step ahead, clinical management training has been given to around 2,800 health associates to prevent the increase in dengue cases. The state government would be distributing 1.10 lakh mosquito nets sent by the Central government.
This year there were around 14,203 cases of dengue but only two deaths were reported. This indicates that mortality of dengue in Indian population has decreased significantly but, the number of people infected by dengue has increased remarkably. Hence, it’s important to improve our efforts to eradicate dengue by spreading awareness about their breeding sites and eradication of mosquitoes carrying the virus. Also, promoting Dengue vaccination in the population can efficiently prevent the onset of dengue fever as the body has already developed immunity against the virus.
But, the most worrying fact is Governmental initiatives to stop dengue spread and keep disease in control have been proved to be poorly effective. So, now let’s pledge to support the Government by spreading awareness about prevention and protection form dengue by educating people about not to keep stagnant water open at their homes and wearing of full body covering clothes.
