Doctors in the Philippines warned that co-infections with COVID-19 and dengue are imaginable following reports of patients in the Southeast Asian country testing positive for both diseases at the same time.
“It’s conceivable that someone is out of luck and catches dengue, only to be affected by COVID as well,” said Dr. Voltaire Guadalupe, crisis threat relief and fitness monitoring lead at the Philippine Department of Health (DOH) in the Calabarzon region. , according to ABS-CBN News.
“It’s going to be a real problem. . . the remedy will be for both of us,” Guadalupe explained.
Dengue is a mosquito-borne viral disease that causes high fever and flu-like symptoms such as vomiting and headache, according to the Mayo Clinic. The coronavirus can also cause certain flu-like symptoms, such as fever, cough, and shortness of breath. breath, the CDC noted.
Earlier this year, as many as 10 other people tested positive for dengue and COVID-19 in Tanza, a municipality in the Philippine province of Cavite, according to ABS-CBN News. All cases were isolated.
Patients in the domain who have flu symptoms such as fever, cough, and runny nose will be tested for coronavirus and dengue.
A patient’s illness deserves to be defined as CO-infection with COVID-19 and dengue or just the latter once they qualify, Dr. Lisa S. Ruth Punzalan, Tanza Municipal Health Officer. This is so hospitals know what protocol to follow, adding whether the patient would be placed in the dengue room, coronavirus room or clean room, according to the doctor.
COVID-19 can overlap any disease, the DOH said.
About 65,190 cases of dengue were reported in the Philippines between Jan. 1 and July 2, an 83 percent increase from cases reported at the same time last year, according to the DOH.
A total of 3,752,534 cases of COVID-19 and 60,683 deaths related to the virus have been recorded in the country, according to publicly available government data.
A 62-year-old woman in the northern component of the Philippines reported the first case of COVID-19 and dengue co-infection in the country in August 2020, according to a study published by the National Center for Biotechnology Information.
Dengue fever is a mosquito-borne virus that affects tens of millions of people worldwide every year Photo: AFP/Roslan RAHMAN