Dengue cases need not fill hospitals

A major problem that has been bugging us medical practitioners is that our dengue testing kit cannot detect whether a case belongs to the milder form (dengue fever or DF) or to the more serious form of the disease (dengue hemorrhagic fever or DHF) which can be fatal.

There lies the reason government and private hospitals are filled with so many dengue patients, even though DF should be treated at home and only DHF cases should be confined to a hospital setting. We should always be on alert of DHF which has bleeding tendencies—like from the nose (epistaxis), from the gastrointestinal tract, from the gums and, sometimes, profuse menstruation (menorrhagia). Initially, get a total platelet count; a patient begins to bleed when the platelet goes below 100,000.

The new dengue vaccine has a protection rate of about 63 percent for DF, but it has a protection rate of about 90 percent for DHF which is very substantial. Mortality is still 3 to 5 percent.

—ELISEO R. REBLANDO, MD, FPAFP, DFM, director, Sta. Veronica General Clinic, Olongapo City