00:00We've reached 666 confirmed cases and we would see that there was a pattern where we had a lower
00:06number of cases earlier on during the dry season and really from about April go forward we've had
00:13increasing numbers so that the peak of the dengue surge so far has been June-July.
00:22Most of the dengue cases being reported by the Ministry of Health are people under the age of 20.
00:28That's according to Dr. Avery Himes, Technical Director Epidemiology at the Ministry of Health.
00:34He said there are four different subtypes of dengue and currently there are two in circulation.
00:40He added that infection with one strain followed by another strain increases the risk of someone
00:45with chronic disease of being hospitalized and this can even lead to death. He warned
00:51against patients taking a laid-back approach with the virus when they believe that they
00:55have recovered from it. At that point in time what could be happening is that the fever has
01:00gone away but your body has gone into that period where you start losing fluid from your circulatory
01:07system so you go into shock and you start having belly pain, abdominal pain, very severe vomiting,
01:15frequent vomiting, three times in an hour that sort of thing. If you see your fever go away
01:20you're not feeling better and you're having tummy pain or vomiting that's what you call an
01:26emergency sign or warning sign. Dr. Himes said there's a misconception about the way dengue
01:32cases and deaths are reported by the Ministry of Health. In order for a case to be confirmed as a
01:39dengue death there is the clinical aspect where clinical symptoms are taken into account but then
01:45there's also the laboratory confirmation aspect and we have to await the confirmation of dengue
01:52in this clinically suspected case before we count a confirmed death and the issue with that is that
01:59at times because of the testing that needs to be done is something called IgM, enzyme-linked
02:06immunosorbent assay or ELISA testing. The turnaround time for those tests can be up to
02:12about two weeks so sometimes the confirmation may lag behind the event by a little time.
02:20Dr. Miriam Richards, Principal Medical Officer said there are several signs and symptoms
02:25patients and caregivers should look for when someone reports a feeling unwell.
02:30Fever, eye pain which we note in medical terms as retro-orbital pain, severe headaches,
02:38possibly a rash that may be on the skin and it's a fine viral rash which we call a viral
02:44axanthema. It also includes severe body pain and muscular pain, nausea with vomiting or without
02:53and diarrhea. She also appealed to people suffering with low blood pressure that may
02:58contract dengue to get to the nearest hospital as soon as possible. So basically what happens
03:04is that your blood pressure drops suddenly and significantly so it can't support our body
03:11and that results in the need for fluids what we what we term inotropes and ICU admission.
03:17Persons can also experience hemorrhagic symptoms which means that they start bleeding
03:24and that causes a drop in blood pressure. Sharla Kistu, TV6 News.
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