Dengue fever

Dengue Fever: Don`t Panic, Exercise Caution

Some important tips:

·         As known to all dengue fever occurs due to mosquito bites, breeding in clean water

·         In case of fever visit your family physician at the earliest.

·         Do not take any other tablets except paracetamol for fever.

·         It is a viral fever-so as known to all there is no definitive treatment.

·         Rest is the very important part of treatment.

·         Plenty of fluids orally-any fluids religiously thought the day is key to treatment.

·         Antibiotics,antimalarials  do not help, so please do not self medicate. Avoid pain killer s

·         Please do not insist on taking injections, in fact intramuscular injections are strictly no no in this situation.

·         It is not contagious-means it does not spread from one person to another

·         Your blood counts gives a guide to progress of disease and your body s capacity to fight infection, so daily blood counts are must. At the same time only number of platelets or white cell count alone does not reflect severity of disease and it is not the sole criteria for hospitalization

·         All patients with dengue do not require hospitalization-in fact most of them do not. Your doctor is the best judge to decide on this, please have patience and don`t panic.

·         Alternative medicines may have role but no generalized measures should be tried by just reading it somewhere or from a free friendly advice. They should only be taken on advice of experts from the respective branch or authority in the subject.

·         Preventing mosquito bite the only preventive measure. No vaccine as of now is available.

Issued in public interest by Gujarat state family physician's forum.