Doctors in Delhi have called for taking precautionary measures as the city saw a sudden spike in the number of dengue, viral and scrub typhus cases among children in hospitals.
Dr Dhiren Gupta, senior pediatrician at Sir Gangaram Hospital, told news agency ANI that cases are likely to increase more in the next two months due to the prevailing humid weather.
"For past 15 days, it has been dominantly viral, but it is majorly of daily fever cases. Though if we are getting 100 patients in OPD then 50 per cent of patients are of dengue, 40 per cent viral especially of influenza, and another infection that is a respiratory syncytial virus which we call RSV, and in 10 per cent we are getting scrub typhus from Delhi especially from green areas where a lot of greenery is there. There are many societies where greenery is there," said Dr Gupta.
Noting that an exponentially high number of viral fever cases have also been reported in Chacha Nehru Hospital, Dr Mamta Jajoo, Professor Pediatrics, Head of the office, said, as quoted by ANI, "The OPD is functioning 24/7. Normally OPD sees 700/800 patients every day, but for the last one week more than 1,800 patients are coming each day only during the day and evening time. We are seeing approximately 300 patients each night."
"Have not received any corona positive patients these days but can't loosen up. 100 per cent of our ICU beds are occupied and even more. This is just in the case of viral fever. Cases of dengue, malaria will tend to increase with time due to heavy continuous showers," she added.
“Many dengue patients are landing in ICU this time," said Dr Gupta adding, “"Now past 15 days that many of the Dengue cases are actually landing in ICU. Almost 50 per cent of our ICU is occupied by dengue infection, and they are very complicated in form of a lot of bleeding a lot of multi-organ failure."
On prevention, Dr Gupta said, "Need to take care of stagnant water. Mosquito usually breeds in freshwater which is not flowing at individual at house level. We need to prevent the accumulation of water around."
He also emphasized that, "Nowadays, unfortunately, many of anti-mosquito repellent are not working. Mosquitoes have become a little resistant to those smells you can say."
(With inputs from agencies)
