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Decoding Dengue: Causes, Symptoms, Treatment, Prevention

Medpho Team April 27, 2023

With dengue cases overgrowing, it is of utmost importance to understand the disease, its causes and early signs and symptoms.

What’s the Deal?

Also known as black fever, dengue fever is a disease caused by the Aedes mosquito. Often occurring in subtropical, and tropical regions of the world, dengue fever symptoms are revealed with the onset of extremely high fever, severe headache, muscle and joint pain, and several other flu-like symptoms. While this might be a mild type, severe dengue fever could lead to serious bleeding, fatal lows in blood pressure resulting in shock, death, etc. 

Causes of Dengue 

Dengue fever traces its cause to one of the four variants of dengue viruses. In fact, while it is a common myth that dengue is transferrable, it is actually not and is spread only through mosquito bites. How does the transmission happen? Well, a mosquito acquires the virus when it bites an already infected person. When it bites another person, the virus gets transmitted through the person’s bloodstream, being a major cause of dengue spread. 

Hence, dengue fever never spreads directly from one person to another.

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Dengue Fever Symptoms

Several people experience almost no symptoms or signs of dengue fever. When the symptoms reflect, they are often mistaken for flu or seasonal viral. Symptoms of the illness occur mostly between four (4) to ten (10) days after the infected mosquito bite transpires.

One of the most common dengue fever symptoms is the onset of high fever (104 degrees celsius). 

This is then followed by:

  1. Severe headache;
  2. Swollen glands;
  3. Skin rashes;
  4. Nausea and vomiting; and
  5. Muscle ache and joint pain.

While several people often recover from dengue fever within a week or a fortnight, others suffer from severe symptoms that worsen over the course of medication. Such prevalent symptoms are nothing short of fatal and are referred to as dengue shock syndrome or dengue hemorrhagic fever.

Post recovery, while you might acquire long-term immunity to the particular type of virus you were infected with, you won’t get immunity against the other three virus variants. Does this mean you can be infected again with another one of the three variants? Yes, that risk still persists. In fact, the possibility to develop severe dengue fever rises with every consecutive onset of the dengue fever.

Dengue Fever Treatment

Until this day, dengue has no specific medicine or treatment. While doctors generally administer paracetamol to patients for pain regulation and fever management. Greater preference is given to paracetamol over aspirin, since the latter is prone to stimulate bleeding. Apart from medication, increasing fluid ingestion is another one of the essential remedies for dengue fever treatment.

In severe dengue fever cases, treatments resort to IVF supplements, blood transfusions, and hospitalization. 

Dengue Fever Prevention

The best way to prevent dengue is to avoid mosquito bites.Controlling mosquito breeding is one of the most efficient ways to accelerate the preventive care. 

Apart from that, here are a few tips that might help you cut down on the risks pertaining to dengue fever:

  1. Keep your residence well-screened: Mosquitoes carrying the dengue virus stay active from dawn to dusk, i.e. throughout the day. However, this does not negate the chances of the virus being transmitted over night time.
  2. Wear covered clothing: When traveling to areas where mosquito-infestation is prevalent, try to wear protective and covered clothing to tackle the cause of dengue. Wear long-sleeved clothes, covered trousers, etc.
  3. Apply mosquito repellent: When moving out of the house, remember to apply mosquito repellent on your clothing and shoes. 
  4. Bring down mosquito habitat: The mosquitos that bear the dengue fever virus can ideally be found in and around our house, with stagnant water being its primary breeding ground. Lower mosquito breeding by keeping your surroundings clean, and eliminating habitats that might aid or proliferate the breeding process.

With the country witnessing the worst of outbreaks this November, it is high time the government, medical staff, and citizens work together to contain the disease. 

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How can you curb the illness and take precautionary measures against dengue fever? Get accurate information and significant remedies with doctors on #BasEkCall at 88569-88569.

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