KARACHI: Dengue not contagious but precaution a must: experts
KARACHI, Oct 19: Although, dengue is not a contagious disease and a patient could not transmit the same to some other person, health workers must take special care and exercise all precautions while handling a case or patient. They must use gloves to avoid acquisition of any concomitant infection such as Hepatitis B or C, said Dr Afia Zafar, Head of the Microbiology Section of the Aga Khan University.
She was speaking at a seminar on ‘Dengue Fever: What Every Family Physician Must Know’ which was organised by the AKU's Pathology and Microbiology Department in collaboration with the Department of Medicine as part of the Continuing Medical Education programme for general practitioners on Thursday.
Dr Afia Zafar said the disease was transmitted only through the mosquito-bite. Clinically, suspected cases or even laboratory proven patients do not require isolation room. Masks and aprons are not required during nursing or examination of infected patients.
Speaking on ‘Dengue Infection in Children’, Dr Anita Zaidi, a specialist in Paediatric Infectious Diseases at the AKU, said that dengue fever was usually a mild disease but if appropriate care was not taken, serious complications could develop in some children.
Pointing out that dengue fever had become an epidemic in Karachi, she stressed that in such a situation, any child with fever for more than two days without a runny nose, and also had rashes on the face and body should be suspected for dengue fever.
She said the health care practitioners should, as a first step, seek a complete blood count of a patient on the third day of illness. Swelling on face, hands and feet, or bleeding from any part of the body, are signs of the infection getting serious and the patient needing urgent intervention and hospitalisation. Because dengue fever can be confused with malaria and typhoid, malarial smear and blood culture are also needed. While antibiotics have no role in curing dengue fever, the child can make full recovery if he/she is kept hydrated.
Dr M. Aslam Khan, Assistant Professor and Consultant Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, said that dengue infection manifested as fever with associated headache, muscle and joint pain, nausea/vomiting and rashes. Fever lasts five to six days and terminates abruptly while fatigue lasts several days after infection.
Dr Erum Khan, Assistant Professor, Pathology and Microbiology, said that the first dengue virus infection in Pakistan was reported in 1994. Selected samples during the dengue outbreak in 2005 had been sent from the AKU for serotype and sequence analysis to the Virology Lab of Health Protection Agency in United Kingdom. The results had revealed that the current outbreak was due to a different serotype which suggested that there was an increased risk of second severer form of infection.—PPI
