Dengue Fever - New Beginning

Happy new year everyone :)

I was on call in the emergency department last night and I had quite a good call. Yesterday wasn’t as busy as I expected since it’s the holiday season and all. I’ve been wanting to write on Dengue Fever for quite sometime but always have forgotten about it soon afterwards. Somehow it feels like dengue season is all the year round in Malaysia. Probably shouldn’t be called “season” since it really does affect a lot of lives all through out the year.

Dengue fever is caused by transmission on dengue viruses through a vector (something that carries and transfers the virus) very well know to all of us, that’s the mosquito. Not just any mosquitoes. It’s the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. We recognize it for having black and white stripes over its legs. These little buggers also transmits other viruses causing Chikungunya and yellow fever. As we all know they like living and breeding in clean stagnant water. So if you haven’t washed your used glass of water with probably some water in it somewhere in your sink or under your bed, please get to it. Wash it off and you might save yourself from being bitten by what you have cultured in there.

How do we look out for symptoms of dengue fever?

1. As the article said it, we usually suspect dengue fever if your fever persist until day 3 of fever.
2. Muscle and joint pains. This is quite common even in other normal viral fever (the not-so-dangerous kind of fever)
3. Headache.
4. Vomiting and diarrhea (watery stool). Do not hesitate to go to the hospital for check up for thinking that it might be a regular food poisoning symptoms. Severe vomiting and diarrhea may make you very dehydrated so do not wait any longer!
5. Bleeding tendencies, such as gum bleeding when you brush your teeth. Or nose bleed. Sometimes some patients present with rashes. You might not be able to understand the pattern of the rash that you see, so whenever you see your skin gets red you should probably get it checked instead of trying to be a doctor of your own.

How dengue kills? Many would ask this question as to how a simple mosquito bite kills a human being or to be exact, dengue fever claimed up to tens of thousands of lives per year in Malaysia (alone). To simplify the effect that brought about the severity of this illness is by the fact that it causes the water level in your body to reduce drastically and significantly leaving you all dried up and hence if treatment is late that person may go into a shock (not a shocking-scary-shock but a term used to describe reduction in perfusion and oxygenation in your tissues) and that causes death. So in short, when having any fever at all you need to drink a lot of water. However, I’m not suggesting you to stay at home and drink 5L of water per day because it will only cause you more harm then good. What you really need is to get yourself treated in hospitals.

You may neglect the facts that this mosquito business is a serious matter. Until you have lost someone you know or love who succumb to dengue fever. Only then you may open up your eyes and try to do something about it when you know it is already too late for the damage has been done. I have seen so many of young, well built fellows who suddenly collapse from dengue fever and in an instant die in front of my eyes. I know life and death is a fate and we can’t run away from it. But let’s just try to create a better and healthier living environment for ourselves and those whom we care for so much.

Let us start cleaning what we have left so to kick off a brighter future ahead of us on this new year :)