NEW DELHI: Amid a rise in dengue cases in the national capital, doctors from city hospitals said many patients of the vector-borne disease are developing complications such as liver dysfunction and capillary leak. More than 900 cases of dengue have been reported in the city in October, taking the infection tally to 1,876 so far this year, according to a civic report.
The 939 cases, recorded till October 19, is nearly half of the total number of dengue cases logged this year.
Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Wednesday said the government is monitoring the data and stressed that cases are rising but there have been no fatalities.
Dr Sumit Ray, head of critical care at Holy Family Hospital in Okhla, said 37 patients are currently admitted to their facility. “On an average, 6 to 10 patients are getting admitted everyday. Patients aged between 20-40 years are developing issues such as severe liver dysfunction and capillary leak,” he said.
He added that the patients developing such complications could be either due dysregulated immune response or movement of people after a gap of two years due to Covid.“Ninety per cent of the people have a balanced immune response but in some cases, it is over responsive or under-responsive,” he said.
Dr Sushila Kataria, senior director - Internal Medicine at Medanta in Gurugram, said they were seeing 10 patients every day on an average for the last three weeks, but said the numbers are expected to decline in the next few days.
She stressed that ‘liver involvement’ is not a rare in dengue and asserted that cases could be severe this time as there were Covid-related restrictions in place for the last two years and now people are stepping out more as the economy has opened up.
‘Liver involvement not rare among patients’
Dr Sushila Kataria, senior director - Internal Medicine at Medanta in Gurugram said that ‘liver involvement’ is not rare in dengue and asserted that cases could be severe this time as there were Covid-related restrictions in place for the last two years and now people are stepping out more as the economy has opened up.