Public hospitals lack dengue detection skills, say doctors

MUMBAI, DEC 19: With a complete dearth of diagnostic facilities in the public hospitals of the city, the 26 cases of dengue that have bee...

MUMBAI, DEC 19: With a complete dearth of diagnostic facilities in the public hospitals of the city, the 26 cases of dengue that have been detected this year could be just the tip of the iceberg, with many more cases likely to go undetected.

Dengue virus is spread by a particular species of mosquito called the aedes egypti, that breeds in clean water. The symptoms of dengue fever are severe headache, bodyache, body rash, vomiting and nausea, and there is no specific treatment for this condition. Only symptomatic treatment can be given, and if the dengue is of a mild variety, then it recedes by itself.

If the person is afflicted by the severe variety of the disease, then it may lead to haemorrhage, resulting in death.Medical sources explained that in both varieties of dengue fever, the doctors are unlikely to know that the patient is suffering from dengue and might think of it as either malaria or some other disease.

No diagnostic facilities are available in public hospitals and only indirectevidences, like low blood platelet count and the antibodies test, are used to suspect dengue fever. Last year, there was a total of 54 cases of dengue with two deaths.Dr Alka Karande, executive health officer of theBMC says that there have been 26 cases of dengue in the city this year, and for a population of 12 million, this is not a very high figure.

Also, there have been no deaths due to dengue fever, which shows that the patients were affected by the mild variety of the disease, she said. She agreed that the treating doctor has to depend on indirect evidences for suspecting dengue fever, and that for a definite report, the sample has to be sent to the National Institute of Virology, Pune. But, the BMC is carrying out surveys to keep track of any more cases in the city, and cases reported from hospitals are being followed up individually, she said.

But medical sources said that not enough attention is being paid to the prevention aspect, and mosquito population has been growing at an alarmingrate. Spraying of insecticide and fogging specific spots that are prone to mosquito breeding are not being done properly by BMC workers.

Sources said that the effectiveness is reduced because instead of spraying at split timings to match the sleep cycles of the mosquitoes, the workersdo it at one shot.Meanwhile, Dr Alka Deshpande, Professor and Head of Medicine Department of JJ Hospital agreed that with lack of diagnositic facilities at public hospitals, some cases could have gone undetected.

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.and steps needed to be taken to rectify this situation.Reacting to this claim, Dr Karande said that they have carrying out regular fogging and spraying activities, and are even checking the breeding of mosquitoes in the respective areas in which the recent dengue cases were reported. The D ward of the BMC received a letter from Breach Candy Hospital only on Friday, and the follow-up will be started today, she added.

Meanwhile, Dr Alka Deshpande, Professor and Head of Medicine Department of JJ Hospital, said thatthey had a patient who had a mild attack of dengue fever about five months ago, and they had to send the sample to the Bombay Hospital for the test. She agreed that with lack of diagnositic facilities at public hospitals, some cases could have gone undetected and steps needed to be taken to rectify this situation.

But at the same time, no cases of haemorrhagic dengue fever have been seen so far, which shows that the situation is not very serious, Dr Deshpande said. But, even doctors in hospitals need to be trained about detecting suspected cases of dengue and doing the follow-up so that cases are not missed, she added.