Bangladesh is grappling with a deadly dengue outbreak as heavy monsoon rains cause widespread infections and fill hospitals.
Health experts in the South Asian nation of 170 million people say the disease has already reached an “epidemic” proportion, even though the government has not officially declared one. Until Sunday night, at least 176 people—31 of them children aged below 14—died of mosquito-borne fever, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
Wednesday was the deadliest day when 19 people died of the disease, which has seen nearly 33,000 hospitalizations this year, according to the DGHS data. DGHS says 115 of the 176 deaths this year happened in July's first 23 days. There were only 29 deaths last year in the same period.
Experts warn the situation could get more serious in the coming days as dengue hospitalizations and deaths in Bangladesh usually peak in August and September. “I think the dengue outbreak this year has the same impact on people as it did in 2019, if not more," said ANM Nuruzzaman.
He spoke of the year that saw more than a million hospitalizations—the highest ever in the country—and 179 deaths. Many in Bangladesh still call 2019 the “year of dengue”. “The government should declare [this year] an epidemic and take proper measures to stop its spread. Otherwise, it will get worse,” Nuruzzaman said.
On July 16, the Bangladesh Medical Association, the apex body for doctors, also urged the government to declare the dengue outbreak a “public health emergency”.
Thousands of children are affected.
But fear of the disease is spreading. Social media is flooded with accounts of suffering and deaths from all parts of the country, especially in the sprawling capital of Dhaka. Anwara Ferdousi, 76, decided to see a doctor at Dhaka’s Square Hospital after having a fever for two days.
“I was asked to do a dengue test. When I returned to the hospital after two days with the result, I couldn’t see the doctor as he himself had been diagnosed with dengue. In fact, two more doctors on the same floor of the hospital caught the virus as well,” Ferdousi told Al Jazeera. Parents worry about their children. The DGHS data says 7,240 children aged below 14 have caught the disease.
“I have stopped sending my daughter to school as some of her classmates are already infected with dengue,” Rashed Jitu, a businessman in Dhaka’s Lalbagh area, told Al Jazeera. “Her school has issued a notice to parents to use mosquito repellents on their children. It’s so scary.”
Doctors say dengue is particularly dangerous for children, who are more susceptible to developing shock syndrome. This is a condition that prompts the body’s immune system to overreact against the dengue virus, causing plasma leakage, bleeding, and severe dehydration.
Dr. Shatavisa Dhar of Bangladesh Shishu Hospital and Institute, the country’s largest state-run hospital for children, told Al Jazeera it takes a day for affected children to turn critical, compared with about 48 hours for an adult.
“Besides, a child has 20 percent more risk than an adult of developing shock syndrome,” she said.
Abdul Qayium, a bus driver in Gazipur, a district adjacent to Dhaka, lost his six-year-old son Rehan Ahmed earlier this month to dengue.
“He was in the hospital for 10 days. He was recovering, but all of a sudden, he entered shock and died,” a grieving Qayium told Al Jazeera.
Source: Al Jazeera.
