Dengue and Maleria – controlling the outbreak amid COVID social distancing norms & lockdown is necessary. People are advised to take all precaution and report symptoms as soon as they occur and not delay treatment.
Dengue– a disease that claims many lives every year generally strike during rainy season. As per doctors in Medeor Hospital, Delhi has started reporting few cases since last few weeks. This year though, situation is rather serious and different. With people already under the impact of a dreaded Covid-19 pandemic, outbreak of Dengue can prove to be disastrous for everybody.
Controlling dengue this year is going to be extremely challenging considering the lockdown restrictions and social distancing norms. Till previous year, municipal bodies of each state actively worked towards controlling the spread of Dengue, be it house-to-house inspection or spraying of pesticides in colonies.
Dr. Manoj Sharma, Senior Consultant, Medeor Hospital, Delhi says “This year, however things are different. Considering social distancing, door-to-door inspections are not possible. Also, since the migrant labourers left for their villages, not enough staff is there to carry out large scale disinfection across cities. Thus, it is important to understand that precautions should be taken to contain the spread of this disease from the doctors and to take necessary actions.”
According to Dr Rahul Tambe, Senior Consultant at Nanavati Hospital, Mumbai “There has been a spike in monsoon diseases, especially malaria, in Greater Mumbai. Although malaria cases are a cyclic phenomenon, Malaria shares some of the highly recognizable symptoms with Covid-19 such as fever, headache, breathless etc, The definitive way is to correctly identify the underlying infection, hence it is important that proper diagnosis is done for covid-19 patients as well as a malaria patient immediately upon arrival. People are advised to take all precaution and report symptoms as soon as they occur and not delay treatment.”
