With the mercury level soaring in the city, the heat is bringing with it a fair share of chickenpox cases.
The Infectious Diseases Hospital (IDH) at Thoppur near here, which is attached to the Government Rajaji Hospital, is treating 36 persons with chickenpox at the moment. The hospital has been receiving five such cases almost every day.
The facility usually got chickenpox-related cases from March, but this year the district had witnessed a sudden spurt in the number of cases in January itself, a hospital employee said on Sunday.
The chickenpox ward at the hospital had 20 cases in the first week of January. Now, it had 15 children, 14 men and seven women – two of them pregnant. The vulnerable age group was below 12 years, the employee added.
“People should be careful to avoid complications caused by the disease, as they may affect the brain,” said J. Balakrishnan, Medical Officer, IDH.
“People must avoid meat and include loads of fresh fruits and vegetables in their diet during summer as it would help boost the resistance power of the body,” he added.
Chickenpox was caused by Varicella-zoster virus and the symptoms included fever, running nose, cough and itching of skin. Round spots appeared on the body, usually a day after the symptoms developed, he noted.
The duration of the disease was two to three weeks and patients would be given antiviral tablets at the hospital. Each tablet would cost about Rs.200.
Poor people should get admitted to the IDH at the earliest if they had any symptoms of chickenpox to prevent complications and its spread to others, Dr.Balakrishnan said.
Asked about the preparedness, Dr.S. Gandhimathinathan, Resident Medical Officer, said the hospital had adequate stock of the drugs to treat patients with chickenpox.
S. Senthil Kumar, Deputy Director of Health Services, Madurai district, told The Hindu that precautionary measures were being taken in the district and all health staff and doctors attached to primary health centres had been put on alert.
