Dengue is a serious viral infection prevalent mostly in tropical countries like India, Africa, etc.

Causes: It is transmitted by an infected female Aedes aegypti mosquito. When the mosquito bites a person infected with dengue, the dengue virus enters the body of that particular mosquito. When the infected mosquito bites a healthy human being, the dengue virus enters the human body and the person shows the symptoms of dengue.

Symptoms:

• High-grade fever with chills. Fever is as high as 104*F
• Severe headaches
• Severe joints and muscle pains
• Severe pain in eyeballs especially while moving the eyes.
• The appearance of skin rash mostly on the abdomen and limbs.
• Nausea, vomiting, and loss of appetite
• Internal and external bleeding in the body

Dengue fever should be suspected when the patient complains of very high temperature and severe body pain. While giving the history the patient says, I feel as if each bone of mine is broken. When a practitioner gets to hear such kind of words or description by a patient, he should investigate that patient for dengue fever immediately.

Dengue fever is also known as Break bone fever. Platelet counts start decreasing fast in the blood in such patients. Platelets are responsible for stopping the bleeding occurring anywhere in the body. The decrease in the number of platelets increases chances of hemorrhage from various parts of the body in the patients suffering from this disease.

The following symptoms in a patient with Dengue are considered alarming signs. Such patients should be kept under close medical observation.

• Bleeding from the nose
• Bleeding from mouth
• Passing blood in the urine. This may present as passing reddish or brownish urine
• Passing blood in stools. Or passing dark-colored stools.
• Bleeding from the skin causing bruising on the body.
• Severe hypotension means a drop in blood pressure.
• Brain hemorrhage and internal bleeding in various parts of the body like stomach, lungs, etc.

Diagnosis:

Diagnosis is confirmed by doing the Dengue IgM test along with other blood tests like CBC ESR, Liver function test, PCR and virus isolation tests are the confirmatory tests for the Dengue fever.

Prevention:

The spread of this disease can be reduced by taking the following measures.

• As far as possible wear clothes that cover the skin of the whole body. This prevents skin exposure to the mosquitoes.
• Use mosquito repellents in the room
• Use nets and screens on windows.
• Avoid storing water in bathrooms and kitchen as dengue-spreading mosquitoes breed in clean and stagnant water.
• Avoid keeping plants in the house. Because this is an ideal ground for the mosquito breeding.

Treatment:

The treatment is given symptomatically. Ideally, the patient should be hospitalized to keep a check on platelet counts and as there is a lot of loss of fluids from the body patient has to be administered IV fluids to keep him hydrated. Patients of Dengue can easily go into hypotension (low blood pressure), so continuous Blood Pressure monitoring is also very important. When there is a need doctor advises the patient for undergoing platelet transfusion.

Role of homeopathy:

Dengue is the disease that requires close monitoring of the patient in the hospital. Administering homeopathic drugs along with other conventional drugs can speed up the time of recovery in the patient.

Homeopathic medicine Eupatorium Perfoleatum is one of the drugs best known to reduce body pain considerably in the patient suffering from Dengue. Apart from this, drugs like Aconite, Gelsemium, Bryonia Alba, Rhus Toxicodendron, and Ipecacuanha, etc. can be given as per the symptoms.

As a supportive line of treatment along with conventional medicines, homeopathic medicines can offer the best results in the treatment of Dengue. More research is required to prove if Dengue could be prevented by using homeopathic prophylactic medicines. Some study in Brazil has shown encouraging results with homeopathic preventive.