Dengue fever epidemic in season

​Many patients with severe dengue require intensive treatment at the hospital

Each person can get dengue 4 times in a lifetime

Experts recommend that each person can get dengue fever up to 4 times in a lifetime. There is no vaccine or specific treatment for the disease. Therefore, people need to be self-disciplined, proactive in disease prevention, to ensure the health of themselves and their family members.

Deputy Director Nguyen Trong Nghia of Dong Nai Children's Hospital said that the hospital is treating 40 patients with dengue fever, including 12 severe dengue cases.

Taking care of a child at the Intensive Care Unit of Dong Nai Children's Hospital, Mr. Nguyen Van Ket, 44 years old, living in Trang Dai Ward, Bien Hoa City, said that his son is 12 years old and weighs 53kg. A few days ago, the child had a high fever, vomiting, and was taken to the emergency room. After 2 days of treatment at the Department of Tropical Diseases, the patient showed signs of worsening, low blood pressure, so he was transferred to the Intensive Care Unit to receive oxygen and intravenous fluids.

According to Mr. Ket, both father and son are staying in a rather narrow, humid hostel. At night, father and son do not cover with the mosquito net, so they are likely to be bitten by mosquitoes. Notably, this patient had had dengue fever once last year.

Most recently, the Intensive Care Unit of Dong Nai Children's Hospital received patient M.T.V., 15 years old, living in Phu Lam Commune, Tan Phu District, transferred from Dinh Quan area General Hospital.

The patient's family said that 1 week ago, the child had a high fever, and his parents took him to a private clinic in the area to be examined, and it was diagnosed as not having dengue fever. 2 days later, the patient had no fever but had abdominal pain. Thinking that the child has indigestion, the family went to buy medicine for the child to take and take it to a private medical facility. At this time, the doctor diagnosed dengue fever. The patient then fell into a state of fatigue, fainted, and was taken to Dinh Quan area General Hospital for infusion for nearly 1 day.

Dr. Tran Le Duy Cuong, Deputy Head of the Department of Intensive Care and Anti-poison, said that during the infusion at the lower-level hospital, the patient was shocked once again, breathing was tired, exerted, and the abdomen was distended due to the fluid poured into the abdomen. The patient was transferred to Dong Nai Children's Hospital to receive high-pressure oxygen, high-molecular-weight fluids, and hemodynamic monitoring by monitor.

Dr. Cuong added that, from the beginning of the year until now, the department has conducted dialysis for 2 patients with severe dengue hemorrhagic fever and multi-organ damage. In addition, there are some cases where multi-molecule transfusions, transfusion of extra blood and blood products, oxygen breathing are required.

Dr. Cuong noted that a case of a pediatric patient suffering from a multi-system inflammatory syndrome related to Covid-19 (post-Covid-19) infection with dengue fever has been recorded. Therefore, when seeing a child showing symptoms such as high fever, fatigue, lethargy, loss of appetite, inability to drink water, rapid pulse, cold hands and feet, blood pressure clamping/dropping, parents need to quickly bring the child to the hospital for timely diagnosis and treatment.

 A child with dengue shock is being treated at the hospital

No vaccine is available for the disease

Dr. Phan Van Phuc, Head of the Department of Infectious Diseases Prevention and Control, Provincial Center for Disease Control, said that dengue fever is transmitted from sick people to healthy people through mosquitoes. The continuous hot weather, mixed with sudden rains, are favorable conditions for the development of larvae and mosquitoes, increasing the risk of dengue fever. We have entered the rainy season, which is a good condition for mosquitoes to breed and develop. Therefore, the number of dengue cases is expected to continue to increase in the near future. Dengue fever, if not detected and treated promptly, will seriously affect health and may cause the deaths. Each person can get dengue up to 4 times in their life, corresponding to 4 types of virus causing the disease, and the next infection is usually more severe than the previous one.

In order to reduce the number of dengue fever cases and control the epidemic situation in the province, the Provincial Center for Disease Control is implementing and directing medical centers and health stations to strengthen monitoring measures. Verifying cases, monitoring insects in key communes and wards, thoroughly handling outbreaks, supplying chemicals to prevent and combat dengue fever, spraying insecticides.

Experts warn that 2022 is the year of the dengue epidemic. Therefore, forecasting dengue fever epidemic situation will be very complicated. Therefore, medical staff should be warned to identify dengue fever early, avoid missing cases, and delay treatment. In addition, it is necessary to strengthen communication so that people understand the epidemic situation, thereby proactively taking preventive measures, recognizing early signs of disease to bring patients to medical facilities in the soonest time.

Accordingly, each citizen, family, agency, and unit should clean and tidy their homes, workplaces and activities; clean up, don't let the areas containing standing water for the wriggling; turn over buckets, jars, bottles and jars of water that are not needed; change perfume bottles; put the fish in the water tank to kill the larvae; Cover jars and water containers when not in use. In addition, should use spray, incense, mosquito repellant cream, racket to avoid mosquitoes; wear long-sleeved clothes, sleep under a mosquito net even during the daytime to avoid being bitten by mosquitoes.

Bao Ngoc