What is Dengue fever (DF)?

Dengue infection is caused by a virus. It occurs commonly as dengue fever. Occasionally the patient suffering from dengue may develop bleeding. Common sites for bleeding are nose, gums or skin. Sometimes, the patient may have coffee ground vomiting or black stools. This indicates bleeding in gastro intestinal tracts and it is serious. The patient with dengue who has bleeding has dengue haemorrhagic fever (DHF ). Rarely the patient suffering from dengue may develop shock, then it is called dengue shock syndrome ( DSS).

In the case of a dengue outbreak or epidemic what are our strategies?

Wednesday, 28 September 2011

Prevention of mosquito breeding places remains our mainstay. However to stop or to slow down the transmission it may be supplemented by "thermal fogging", using fogging machines. In fogging,we use an insecticide that has an immediate knock-down effect on adult mosquitos. When fogging is undertaken after an  epidemic occurs, it is unfortunately too late. Fogging, to be effective,  should be done at about 3-4 days interval. It is expensive and time consuming. Therefore, measures undertaken by the community, for the community toprevent the breeding of mosquitoes is far more cost-effective than containment measures once an outbreak occurs.

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