Dengue Vs Malaria: How To Understand What Is Causing Fever?
The season for mosquito-borne diseases is here! Before it gets out of control, let's take a quick look at the two most common diseases that spread via mosquitoes -- Dengue and Malaria. Poor lifestyle habits can weaken your immune system, and added to this an unhygienic way of living can invite some severe and major health complications. When both get combined, you are bound to get attacked by viruses that are lingering in nature. One of the most common diseases that we all get notified of during the summer is dengue and malaria.
Seasonal change provides a fertile breeding season for certain harmful germs and vectors that spread diseases. As per the data available, India faces a huge burden of mosquito-borne diseases, contributing 34% of global dengue and 3% of global malaria cases. Therefore, it is important that we talk about the two diseases and their symptoms.
Why are we talking about the symptoms here? It is because both malaria and dengue share some common signs and symptoms. However, only a few know that there are certain fundamental differences too. One of the most common signs is 'high fever'. Both dengue and malaria patients can experience high fever after contracting the virus. However, today we are here to share some details about these two health conditions and how to know if your fever is due to malaria or dengue.
Many of the illnesses share fever as the common symptom. However, the fever can be different in some ways, which we will talk about today, in this article. But before we head to know more about the fever, let us check what is malaria, and what is dengue.
It is a mosquito-borne viral disease that is transmitted by female mosquitoes -- Aedes aegypti. The disease usually produces mild flu-like symptoms. However, in rare cases, it can develop a potentially lethal complication called dengue hemorrhagic fever.
What dengue does is that it causes a sudden drop in white blood cells and platelet count? As per studies, it can drop from 1.5 -4 lakhs to as low as 20,000-40,000. How does this happen? Dengue virus severely damages the bone marrow, which is the primary platelet-producing centre of the body and can also generate antibodies that cause the destruction of the platelets. This results in a low platelet count.
Malaria is a life-threatening disease which is caused by Plasmodium parasites. These parasites are transmitted through the bite of infected female Anopheles mosquitoes. Although it is curable, malaria infection is known for causing lakhs of deaths every year, globally.
How to know if your fever is due to malaria or dengue? Well, since both diseases share a set of common signs and symptoms, one of them is fever. We will understand how to know if your fever is due to malaria and not dengue, or vice versa. "Check for the other symptoms as well. It is important to understand that fever is not the only sign of these two conditions," says Dr. Moitree Choudhury.
The signs and symptoms of malaria usually appear 10-15 days after getting bitten by the infected mosquito, these signs include:
The signs start appearing 2-7 days after an incubation of 4-10 days after the bite from an infected mosquito, these include:
