In Eerie Sense of Déjà Vu, Delhi, NCR Hospitals Run Out of Beds Again: Blame Goes To Massive Dengue Outbreak
Planning to live a normal life after a sharp drop in coronavirus cases from around the country? Well, the worries are not over yet. After fighting the ferocious second wave of COVID-19, India is now heading towards another battle. Yes, you heard that right. A recent report has revealed the scary face of the massive outbreak of vector-borne diseases in India. The report has highlighted an exponential surge of dengue, malaria, and chikungunya cases, making way for a new challenge for the healthcare workers, amid the fight against COVID-19.But, why is it a new threat? It is because the sudden spike in dengue and malaria cases in the country has once again led to a scarcity of hospital beds.
Earlier this week, the Delhi government ordered the hospital authorities to use the beds of COVID patients for the ones who have been diagnosed with dengue, malaria, and chikungunya does this mean the scarcity of hospital beds, which was one of the first challenges during the second wave of COVID-19 is still there? Speaking to the media, Delhi Health Minister Satyendra Jain said that amid a surge in dengue cases in the national capital, the government has directed state-run hospitals to use one-third of the COVID-19 beds for treatment of dengue, malaria, and chikungunya patients in the capital. Why COVID beds for dengue patients? The decision has been taken in the view of declining cases of coronavirus and the rise in the cases of dengue, malaria, and chikungunya in Delhi, a statement quoted Jain as saying.
COVID transmits through respiratory droplets, but it can also spread through surfaces which has the virus from the infected individuals. So when these COVID beds will be used for the patients diagnosed with dengue, malaria, and chikungunya, will it help the coronavirus to transmit and enter the body of the non-infected individual? How will they be safe? Taking about the safety of the dengue patients while using the COVID beds, Jain said that these beds will be completely separated from those of the COVID-19 patients and the staff will also be different so that there is no possibility of transmission of the virus infection. "The Delhi government is fully prepared to prevent the spread of dengue and all preparations for the treatment of the vector-borne disease have been made in all the hospitals," he said.
Speaking to TheHealthSite.com, Dr. Raman Kumar, President of AFPI (Academy of Family Physicians of India) said, "Dengue returns every 2-3 years with larger numbers. Hospitals and health facilities are often overwhelmed. While the country was busy from COVID pandemic, a spike in the cases of febrile illnesses, influenza-like illnesses, and Dengue-like symptoms was expected." He further added, "Past two years we didn't see such surge in numbers due to lockdown. While life is getting down to normal after gradual relaxation in economic movement, seasonal infectious diseases are bound to rise. It is normal to see all hospitals full during the monsoon and post-monsoon period. This year is no exception only that there is an overlap with an ongoing COVID pandemic. Double efforts are needed in order to address the challenge of a pandemic as well as seasonal epidemics."
TheHealthSite.com also spoke to Dr. Charu Goel Sachdeva, HOD And Consultant -Internal Medicine, HCMCT Manipal Hospital Dwarka New Delhi, according to her, the situation is challenging this time due to the presence of COVID. "Dengue cases have been rising for the past few months. Because of the rains, there has been water collected everywhere. Everybody was busy taking care of the COVID protocol and was not really looking out for dengue infection," Dr. Sachdeva said.
Why the situation is different this time? To this Dr. Sachdeva said that this time it may be a little different from earlier as there is high-grade fever, which is persisted for quite some time and initially doesn't respond too well to paracetamol.
Dengue is a mosquito-borne viral disease, which means it spreads through the bite of an infected mosquito (Aedes species). Dengue is wrecking havoc in the country and thus proper precautions and necessary understanding of the infection are important. We spoke to Dr. Charu Goel Sachdeva,HOD And Consultant -Internal Medicine, HCMCT Manipal Hospital Dwarka New Delhi about the same. Here's what the doctor suggests everyone to do:
"People are very symptomatic in the first few days. Some of the symptoms include - high-grade fever, joint pain, severe muscle aches, abdominal pain, vomiting, bleeding (either stool or even vagina), or could be bleeding in various areas like the nose or mouth. The patients that physicians are seeing in the ward have been cases of Dengue shock syndrome as well, patients with very low blood pressure and organ failure get admitted."
Some patients have developed secondary infections like urinary tract infections, chest infections, and because of the immunity that goes down with dengue fever. The most important thing is, timely intervention, and we can manage them from home. So the red flag that we need to see is, vomiting, low blood pressure, high-grade fever persisting for a very long time (more than three days), drowsiness, and problem in eating fluids or food orally, bleeding. If the platelet count is very low, we have to transfuse platelets, and such patients would be advised for admission. So these are the common cases recently. It is also important to stay hydrated. Mostly there is symptomatic management, we assess the urine output on the lab parameters to know hematocrit value, whether there's any hemo concentration.
"To stop this, timely intervention is very important and explaining to the patients that this is the time to seek medical attention and get hospitalized. This is what we are doing with our patients with COPD. We are also educating them that water collections in nearby areas should be drained out. It is better to wear long sleeves during the daytime and use mosquito repellent. If there is any collected water nearby, in plant pots or coolers it needs to be drained into time. And due to rain, such cases have been growing rapidly," Dr Sachdeva said.
