Health officials puzzled

Dr Pallavi Bhargava,infectious diseases specialist at Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospital,says,“It is the same vector — aedes aegypti—- and the illness is like chikungunya with symptoms like intense fever and joint pain. However several tests at private laboratories show the antibodies test negative for chikungunya. So what exactly is this virus? Is it a variant of chikungunya?”

Dr A C Mishra,Director,NIV rules out a new infection and feels either the samples were sent in too early for confirmation and hence the test did not show antibodies for chikungunya. “We have tested several cases of chikungunya,” says Mishra.

Practitioners and specialists are following a safe line of treatment that relieves pain.

According to Dr Arvind Chopra,a rheumatologist who conducted the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) study on chikungunya in 2006,says there has been an increase in number of patients with the disease.

“We observed that some patients with the same clinical features of chikungunya have a low platelet count. Earlier,the blood count did not dip very low in such patients,” says Chopra. Dr Avinash Bhondwe,former president of the city unit of the Indian Medical Association,says present symptoms are high fever for two days that subside,besides severe joint pain. But a chikungunya test 14 days after onset of fever is negative for antibodies,says Bhondwe. “We are seeing some 5-6 such patients every day,” he adds.

Dr Rajesh Gadia,consulting physician at KEM Hospital who has been seeing 20 patients with the symptoms every day,says most of them are from areas like Mangalwar Peth and Hadapsar and many turn out to chikungunya cases. Symptoms are fever and bodyache. We rule out dengue after testing platelet count on day six of fever whereas tests to confirm chikungunya are done after day 10,says Gadia.

The PMC has registered 55 chikungunya,118 malaria and 107 dengue cases. “We do not know what it is,” says Dr S B Patole,head of the insect control department at PMC.