Recently, an eight-year-old girl was admitted to Universal Medical College Hospital in the city of Dhaka in Bangladesh.
She had had a fever for four days and vomited, had pain in her head and stomach, in addition to having diarrhea.
The girl had breathing problems and a resting heart rate of 160, and had a rash on her arms and legs.
X-rays showed that she had pulmonary haemorrhage and needed immediate help.
In the acclaimed medical journal The Cureus Journal of Medical Science Doctors Anima Ferdous, Mohammad Monir Hossain, Manifa Afrin and Mahfuza Shirin write that they sounded the alarm.
– The patient was immediately intubated and placed on a respirator, they write in the trade magazine.
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Like symptoms
It turned out that the girl had both covid-19 and dengue fever at the same time.
Both diseases ravage both India and Bangladesh, and have several similar symptoms, such as fever, headache and muscle aches.
Dengue fever is transmitted through mosquitoes, and is according to Lommelegen mostly harmless, but around five to ten percent of those infected develop so-called dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF), which leads to bleeding in various parts of the body.
Of these, up to 30 percent die if they do not receive treatment.
FEAR: A man disinfects a school in Sylhet, Bangladesh, to kill dengue-infected mosquitoes. Photo: Md Rafayat Haque Khan / Eyepix Group / Shutterstock
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Both pandemic and endemic
While covid-19 is a pandemic, stated World Health Organization (WHO) in May dengue fever as one endemic.
In recent years, the number of dengue-infected people has increased eightfold.
While in the year 2000, 960 dengue deaths were reported, in 2015 all were reported 4032.
FEAR: Due to the growing dengue and malaria infection in India, congressional candidate Ashish Chatterjee held a mosquito net in mid-December in Kolkata. Photo: AP
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Rare case
In The Cureus Journal of Medical Science, doctors write that as many as 27,000 Bangladeshis have been hospitalized with dengue fever this year.
According to doctors, it is very rare for a person to have covid-19 and dengue fever at the same time.
It is even rarer for children to be affected by both diseases at the same time.
Do you recognize these two?
Could have ended fatally
The girl was treated with intravenous immunoglobulin and methylprednisolone, as according to The Norwegian Medical Association has a strong and general anti-inflammatory effect.
After three days on a respirator, the eight-year-old could finally breathe again and be discharged from the intensive care unit.
– After receiving the necessary advice and agreed follow-up hours, the patient was discharged, the doctors write.
They now ask health professionals not to overlook the symptoms that the girl had, and thus risk forgetting that two different diseases can have similar symptoms.
– It can end fatally, they write.
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