Dengue spike in Delhi

Dengue is a seasonal disease that appears in India from July to October. This year Delhi has encountered a sharp increase of 1,000 dengue cases and 280 cases alone in the last week.

The sudden spell in October may be a possible reason for the spike in Dengue cases in the capital. Water Stagnation can be an alarming sign for the sudden increase in the water-related, mosquito-borne disease 'dengue'. As a result, doctors suggest taking all the precautions to stay safe from certain factors.

What is dengue?
Dengue is commonly defined as break-bone fever. It is caused by a dengue virus when a mosquito known as Aedes carrying a virus bites the healthy person. Here are the symptoms one can reflect if suffering from the dengue virus.

Symptoms

• An individual infected by dengue can get a fever of 104 F degree. Symptoms of dengue are not easily identified in children and teenagers.
• Dengue fever can be categorised into three types, i.e mild dengue fever, dengue shock syndrome and dengue haemorrhagic fever.
• Symptoms of mild dengue fever can be seen after a week from the bites, complications can be severe or fatal both.
• Dengue shock syndrome is a dangerous condition and it can even result in death.
• In dengue demographic fever, one can notice mild symptoms initially but it can worsen in a few days.
• With fever, dengue patients can come across other symptoms like vomiting, muscles and joint pain, nausea, pain behind the eyes, swollen glands, rashes and headache.

If you come across any of the symptoms kindly contact the doctor soon and fulfil all the requirements like a blood test to identify the problem.

Causes
Dengue occurs because of four different viruses namely DENV-1, DENV-2, DENV-3, and DENV-4. Dengue is transmitted when a mosquito bites an infected person, a virus enters the body of the mosquito and that mosquito can spread the disease by biting healthy people.

Precautions
By following the below-mentioned steps, you can stay safe from dengue:

• Ensure there is no stagnant water at your place, the Aedes mosquito spreading dengue breeds in clean and stagnant water.
• Eat healthily and boost your immunity.
• Prefer full sleeve clothes and avoid skin exposure.
• Take care of your personal hygiene.

Diet plan for a dengue patient
Dr Vaishali Verma, consultant dietitian and diabetes educator from Manipal hospital suggested the following points to add to the diet of the dengue patient:

• Because of the weakness, the patient's food intake decreases but it is important to keep a check on the fluid intake. Increasing fluid intake can help patients in maintaining gut health. Coconut water, vegetable soup, and daal water should be added to the list of daily consumption.
• Providing the patient with healthy quality fruits will help in increasing antioxidants in the body.
• To support the immunity system and gut health, digestion probiotic intake should be increased. Buttermilk, curd, yoghurt can be consumed at room temperature.
• If patients do not like to consume simple curd or buttermilk they can mix salt, black pepper and sugar according to their choice.