While most patients recover fully, chikungunya disease can prove fatal. Despite infections going largely unreported, approximately five lakh cases and over 400 deaths were recorded worldwide in 2023, the researchers said.
The expert panel pointed out the anopheles mosquito that causes malaria is likely to be in circulation wherever aedes aegypti, which causes dengue, breeds. Experts pointed out that often danger signals are missed and if these signals are not picked up immediately, a patient is likely to get into an irreversible shock very quickly and die.
The health department earlier had issued guidelines on testing and treatment protocol for malaria along with dengue. Hospitals have also been asked to notify all cases of malaria detection by labs and hospitals. Hospitals across the city are getting patients with malaria infection. The numbers, however, are less than the dengue patient load.
Mosquito-borne diseases dengue and chikungunya have started wreaking havoc in the city. Civic health officials have registered 488 dengue cases, mainly from private hospitals and government-run sentinel centres, and 69 confirmed cases of chikungunya between January 1 and July 6 this year.
The number of cases of dengue reported till Monday this year surpassed the highest number of cases reported last year, which were 8,427.
Of the total 40 malaria cases, 19 were reported in June, 17 in May, one each in April and March, and two in February, said officials.
Aedes aegypti, which is a major health menace in Hyderabad and other parts of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, is now capable of transmitting three diseases -- dengue, chikungunya and now zika.
The total number of dengue cases has gone up to 40, while malaria and chikungunya cases have gone up to 30 and 96 respectively.
Mosquito saliva influences transmission of viruses to a bitten mammalian host. For example, it contains factors that dampen the host immune response and so facilitate infection.
A study published in PLOS NTDs reports a new technique that could make one approach to mosquito control—using Wolbachia bacteria that reduce the mosquitos’ ability to transmit viral pathogens
Aedes Aegypti, a vector that thrives in fresh water, is back to haunt Bengalureans as doctors are seeing increasing cases of patients with low platelet count. “Last week, a 12-year-old boy and a 10-year-old girl from DJ Halli and Babusapalya were brought to our hospital with high fever.
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