Malaria, dengue gang up in Delhi

Vector-borne diseases are ganging up this season to give a headache to doctors who have found people being infected by multiple diseases simultaneously.

Vector-borne diseases are ganging up this season to give a headache to doctors who have found people being infected by multiple diseases simultaneously.

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Ask Shalini Bharti, 19, who survived a deadly mix of dengue, malaria and typhoid.

When Bharti was admitted to south Delhi’s Moolchand hospital on October 11, her haemoglobin count was 7.7 g/dl and her platelet count had dropped to 75,000 per microlitre of blood. “In 10 minutes my fever would go from 100 degrees Fahrenheit to 108 degrees. I remained unconscious for the initial few days and it was only after the blood transfusion that my condition stabilised,” said Bharti.

A first-year college student, Bharti had been diagnosed with typhoid but after she was admitted to the hospital, it was found that she had been suffering from malaria as well.

“We immediately put her on anti-malarial drugs. A combination of all three diseases is usually a rare occurrence. She was critical but fortunate enough to have survived,” said Dr Srikant Sharma, consultant, internal medicine, Moolchand Medcity, Bharti’s treating doctor.On October 20th, Bharti was finally discharged from the hospital, a day before her 19th birthday on October 21.

Meanwhile, Delhi reported its third dengue death on Wednesday with an 11-year-old girl succumbing to the disease at Bhagwan Mahavir Hospital in Pitampura. Sejal, a student of class five, was admitted to the hospital on Monday. Her father runs an electronics shop in Moti Nagar. The total dengue cases also crossed the 1,000 mark, sitting at 1,019.

But it is the deadly combination of diseases that has the doctors worried. Doctors are advising patients to take multiple tests if fever refuses to die down even after four days of medical care.“People must not self medicate and certainly should not self-prescribe antibiotics as it will only worsen the condition,” said Dr Richa Diwan, head of department of medicine at Lok Nayak hospital.

Civic bodies demand more funds

HT Correspondent
htreporters@hindustantimes.com
New Delhi: A day after Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit blamed the municipal corporations for the rise in dengue cases, leaders of BJP-ruled civic bodies hit back saying that the Delhi government has not given them enough funds.
Leader of the House in south corporation, Subhash Arya, said this year the state government brought down fund allocation for the purpose to R44 crore from last year’s R55 crore.
“The government is spending money on advertisements but has little funds for the civic bodies to purchase insecticides and pay the salaries of domestic breeding checkers. We are spending money out of our own pockets for fogging,” said Arya.
Arya’s counterpart in the north Delhi civic body, Mahender Nagpal, said it was unfair to blame the corporations since mosquitoes breed inside homes in stagnant water.“Instead of playing the blame game, the Delhi government must give more funds to the corporations so that we can hire more people,” said Nagpal.