The government and private hospitals in Coimbatore district are witnessing an increase in the inflow of children with dengue and related symptoms.
On December 2, a seven-and-half-year-old boy from Periya Negamam in Coimbatore district had died of dengue.
While sources with the government and private hospitals said there was an increase in the number of such cases, the Health Department claimed there was no significant rise in paediatric cases compared to 2020.
A senior doctor from the Government Hospital, Mettupalayam, said the hospital was getting both paediatric and adult cases of dengue.
“Children with dengue whose platelet count drops below 50,000 per microlitre of blood are immediately referred to the Coimbatore Medical College Hospital for advanced care,” the doctor said.
In normal cases, the platelet count ranges between 1.5 lakh and 4.5 lakh per microlitre of blood.
The hospital was also getting cases of co-infections of dengue and typhoid.
A doctor attached to a private hospital in the city said the number of children being brought for treatment with dengue-related symptoms increased in the last two weeks. More than half of them were getting tested positive for dengue.
According to the doctor, school-going children were mainly getting infected which pointed to possible breeding of aedes aegypti, the primary vector of dengue virus, on the premises of schools. “Children spend most of their time in a day at schools and aedes aegypti is a day-biter,” said the doctor.
CMCH had witnessed an increase in the number of paediatric cases a week ago.
The hospital’s Dean A. Nirmala said it had 13 adults and 11 children undergoing treatment for dengue as of Saturday.
According to K.T.S. Selvavinayagam, Director of Public Health, there was no significant increase in paediatric cases of dengue in the western districts this year compared to 2020.
