Doctors from the affected areas report that many patients were admitted to hospital with low platelet counts.
India once again during the pandemic is alarming with the news of the outbreak of another mysterious disease. Over the past week, an unknown fever has claimed the lives of several dozen people, mostly children. In this regard, the authorities of one of the states closed schools. Previously, the outbreak is not related to the coronavirus. Correspondent.net tells the details.
The causes of the outbreak are still being investigated.
The first case of an unidentified disease in India was identified on August 18, Uttar Pradesh State Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said this week. To date, 132 cases are known, of which 68 were fatal, with at least 40 deaths being children.
Local media, referring to the Indian leadership, write that this number of victims is only an approximate, since the health authorities keep count of the deaths in state medical institutions.
Patients complain that they wake up damp with sweat and with a high fever. In addition, most report joint pain, headache, dehydration, and nausea. Some patients had rashes on their arms and legs and enlarged lymph nodes.
Uttar Pradesh is home to over 200 million people and is the most populous Indian state. There are low standards of sanitation, high levels of malnutrition in children and poor medical care.
On August 31, Amit Mohan Prasad, the undersecretary of state for health, said the unknown disease could be dengue fever, a viral infection transmitted through the bites of mosquitoes that breed in swampy waters.
“The causes of the outbreak are still being investigated, but the symptoms are similar to dengue. We have already launched the state’s health system,” the official said.
Doctors from the affected areas report that many patients were admitted to hospital with low platelet counts, which is characteristic of severe dengue.
“Patients, especially children, die very quickly in hospitals” – quotes BBC News Dr. Nitu Kulshresthu, a health official for the Firozabad district, where 40 people have died in the last week, including 32 children.
Dengue is a predominantly tropical disease and has been circulating in India for hundreds of years. It is endemic in over 100 countries, but about 70 percent of cases occur in Asia.
Over the past 20 years, the virus has become one of the most common pathogens and has mutated into almost 50 strains. Globally, up to 400 million infections are recorded annually, and children are five times more likely to die after a second infection than adults.
The first symptoms of a fever usually appear 3 to 14 days after infection. Patients have fever, headaches, vomiting, and a characteristic rash on the body.
In advanced cases, the disease passes into the hemorrhagic stage and leads to serious consequences up to death. But in most cases, the disease in those infected is asymptomatic or mild.
According to the World Health Organization, there is no specific treatment for dengue fever, and the vaccine against this infection can only be applied to those people who have had it once.
Researchers are trying to stop the spread of dengue fever in a variety of ways, from killing mosquitoes.
So, scientists conducted an experiment in which they infected mosquitoes with Wolbachia bacteria and released insects. This not only helped to significantly reduce the number of cases of infection with the virus, but also prevented the serious course of the disease.
Meanwhile, the number of cases of coronavirus in India over the past day increased by 47 092 people, this is the highest figure in two months, the country’s Ministry of Health said.
The largest number of new cases of the disease – 32.8 thousand – were registered in the state of Kerala in the south of the country. At the same time, 230.4 thousand people receive treatment for coronavirus in Kerala – more than in any other state of India.
India remains in second place in the world in the number of detected cases of coronavirus. According to the latest data from the Ministry of Health, since March last year, when the first cases were detected in the country, the total number of people infected with coronavirus exceeded 32.8 million, more than 32 million people have recovered, more than 439 thousand have died, and the number of people receiving treatment is 389 thousand.
The Ministry of Health also noted an increase in the number of people vaccinated against coronavirus – more than 663 million people received the COVID-19 vaccine, while 509 million people received one dose of the vaccine, and more than 153 million received both doses.
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