CHANDIGARH: The number of dengue cases reported at city hospitals continued to rise on Tuesday, as there were 25 new cases.
The rise in dengue admissions at government hospitals has affected bed availaability and led to a rise in the demand for platelets. Half of the platelets given at hospitals are for dengue patients.
At PGIMER, GMCH and GMSH, over 200 admissions have been reported in the last two weeks. “We are seeing severe dengue cases with the same clinical symptoms as previous years. However, severity has increased,” said an expert with PGIMER.
There have 122 dengue admissions at Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH), Sector 32, since October 4, while PGI has got 27 cases this month. Overall this year, there have been 65 cases reported at PGIMER. Last year, the figure was 100. “There is a surge in October. We got 27 cases in the last 12 days, 30 cases last month, and we expect cases to rise until November,” said a doctor at Postgraduate Insititute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER).
Dengue serotype keeps on changing, the most common are DEN virus 2 and DEN virus 3. “We are seeing patients with headache, fever, pain in the abdomen, etc. There can be complications if the platelet count starts dipping and there is bleeding. A patient can go into shock and, consequently, other organs like liver and brain can get affected,” said the doctor.
The vector-borne virus can occur with or without warning signs. Warning signs include fever, recurrent vomiting which could include 3-4 bouts in a day, bleeding from any site, and pain in abdomen. If platelets decrease without any clinical symptoms, no need to worry,” said a medical specialist at GMCH.
He said the symptoms could be confused with influenza but when there is thrombocytopenia (low platelet count), dengue is confirmed. “We are not seeing co-infections with dengue,” he added,
