KARACHI, Dec 9: A wide range of viral infections have hit people in this city amid a sharp decline in temperature.

Mercury dropped from 25 degrees Celsius to around 10 degrees Celsius with humidity coming down from 80 to 10 per cent over the last three days.

Quite a large number of Karachiites, majority of them children, have contracted influenza — commonest among the weather-borne viral infections. Incidence rate of the very disease is registered to be 50 per cent more among children than adults.

The affected can be distinguished by their condition showing running nose, cough and high-grade fever with backache and neck pain.

Physicians, talking to APP here Monday, said since the above-mentioned features were also symptomatic to malaria, hence influenza was often misdiagnosed as malaria.

Emphasizing on proper examination by doctors, Dr S. M. Afaq, a senior paediatrician, cautioned that no antibiotics or anti-malaria should be administered to the influenza patients.

He opined that by avoiding exposure to fast blowing air, people, especially commuters, could prevent themselves from contracting the disease. However, the patients should undergo a complete bed-rest for an early recovery, he added. He advised parents to keep their ailing children indoors and maintain a warm atmosphere.

A considerable surge in the incidence of asthma has also been noticed during the current cold wave. Dr Afaq suggested that the asthma patients, particularly children, be put on anti-asthamic medicines as long as the current cold spell continued.

Among other winter-related disease, mumps are common in cases reported to clinics and hospitals over the last few days. Most of the patients appeared to be children between five and 14 years of age.

Dr Afaq pointed out that the condition also was being confused with tonsillitis. He pointed out that tonsillitis had no reflection on the patient’s cheeks as it developed inside the throat. “It is suggested that parents must take immediate notice of the condition (mumps) which is contagious,” he advised.

Manifestation of the disease, he said, included high-fever shooting up to 104/105 degrees, which might last two days, and swelling. He recommended simple bed rest and consumption of soft food with hot drinks to the patients and advised not to use any antibiotics.

To a query, Dr Afaq replied that vaccination of mumps had decreased the incidence rate of mumps all over the world and it must be administered to children at the age of 15-18 months.

Mumps do not occur before the age of six months, he said mentioning that the immunity, provided through the specific vaccination, was effective for decades. However, he said, people should take another doze at the age of 60.

He acknowledged that unlike people of developed countries, those in Pakistan often overlooked the importance of the mumps vaccination due to it being expensive.

Dr Afaq also cautioned people against misdiagnosis of skin-dryness as eczema. The skin-dryness problem is the most common in winters due to cold dry winds striking the human body amid extremely low humidity.—APP