News

Warning about severe dengue fever in children

Posted on 01 Month 04 2023

Although it is in the dry season, the development of dengue fever in the West is very complicated, the number of cases is increasing. In particular, the number of seriously ill children has increased due to the subjectivity of adults.

*A doctor examines a child with dengue fever at Can Tho Children's Hospital - Photo: T.LŨY*

According to statistics, from the beginning of the year until now, the number of dengue cases hospitalized at Can Tho Children's Hospital increased 3.78 times (of which severe dengue increased 5.5 times). The number of outpatient pediatric patients increased by 0.7 times over the same period and there were 2 deaths of children with dengue fever.

Doctor Truong Cam Trinh - head of the medical examination department, Can Tho Children's Hospital - said that dengue fever occurs in all subjects, but children are more susceptible. Typically, people with dengue fever have a typical high fever, with symptoms such as pain behind the eyes, headache, rash, nausea ...

Especially when developing into severe Dengue hemorrhagic fever, the critical period occurs within 3-7 days after the first signs appear. Parents need to be very careful, there are many cases when a patient with dengue fever stops having a fever, thinking they have recovered, so they subjectively do not re-examine.

But dengue fever usually has a sudden onset and progresses through three stages: the febrile phase, the critical phase, and the convalescent phase. At this stage, the body temperature will drop, it does not mean that the patient is recovering, but may be in a dangerous stage of the disease.

Signs of severe Dengue hemorrhagic fever should pay attention to: children with severe abdominal pain, vomiting blood, continuous vomiting (bloody), bleeding gums, tooth roots, shortness of breath, fatigue, restlessness, cold skin humidity… Need to take the patient to the hospital immediately.

"In some cases of severe dengue fever, the family voluntarily used ibuprofen and aspirin to reduce fever, causing gastrointestinal bleeding for the patient.

Some cases even arbitrarily increase the dose of antipyretic drugs or combine many different antipyretic drugs, which is very dangerous because it can cause overdose, drug poisoning, liver failure, kidney failure ... ", Dr. warning.