With the viral fever spreading like wildfire in the southern districts, hospitals, especially government hospitals, are overflowing with fever cases everyday.
The Tirunelveli Medical College Hospital, which would receive anywhere between 300 and 400 fever cases a day during the ‘fever season’, is now receiving more than 500 patients suffering with high fever, cold, throat pain, body pain and headache, all symptoms of the viral fever.
Doctors working with in the government hospitals and the primary health centres say that more than 75% of patients coming to the hospitals were fever cases. Government Hospitals in Koodankulam, Nanguneri, Ambasamudram, Tenkasi and Sankarankovil receive more than 400 patients a day and more than 80% of them are fever patients.
“A good number of these patients will certainly test positive for Omicron variant of COVID-19 if they are tested. However, most of them avoid the test and take the tablets on getting prescription from a physician,” said a private practitioner, who is also treating at least 75 fever patients a day.
The only solace is that the fever, without any lung involvement, subsides within five days after proper medication prescribed by the doctors while the Omicron patients with comorbidities like diabetes, hypertension, cancer and those who had undergone liver or kidney transplant would have to battle for life if they fail to come to the hospital in time.
“If the patients have only fever and allied symptoms like headache, body pain, throat pain and do not have any trouble in breathing, they are advised to be in home isolation after properly taking the medicines prescribed by the doctors. If they don’t have any comorbidities, the fever will subside completely on the third or the fourth day and there is no need for panic,” said a doctor attached to a government hospital.
The radiological investigation centres which had to work overtime ever since the COVID-19 outbreak in March 2019 too receive only a few fever cases.
“When the first and the second waves of COVID-19 reached the crescendo, the scan centres were working round-the-clock. Some of the leading scan centres handled even up to 80 cases a day as the deadly lung involvement was killing the patients mercilessly. Now, it has dropped to just 2 or 3 cases a day,” said a radiologist.
