Viral fever hits Hyderabad, doctors cite bad hygiene for spurt

HYDERABAD: The city is suddenly gripped by a spurt in cases of viral fevers with every fourth person having fever, upper respiratory tract infection and myalgia (generalweakness).
Doctors said viral fevers were on the rise with people not wearing masks and not maintaining social distancing. It is also taking longer than usual for recovery in a good number of cases, said doctors.
"I have been suffering from fever, chills, nausea and dizziness for the last 10 days and despite taking paracetamol I did not get relief. When I visited the doctor in my locality, I found a few of my neighbours turning up with similar problems," said Vaishali Bhutola, a resident of Ameenpur area.
Doctors are seeing several cases from the same families, neighbourhoods and workplaces. Doctors blamed it on people's own doing as many of them have thrown caution to the wind, forgotten wearing masks and mingling with others without taking any care.
"With people completely forgetting the masks, not following the basic hand hygiene and social distancing, viral fevers are on the rise. During the pandemic due to use of masks, these fevers remained at bay and have now come back stronger. Viral fevers are spreading rapidly and when we take the case history, it's found that it might have spread from a child to the entire family," said Dr Rahul Agarwal, general physician, who has been seeing 45-50 cases of viral fever every day.
The surge began a fortnight ago and now most outpatient departments in hospitals are flooded with these cases. At the state-run fever hospital, the number of cases are currently 400-450 per day of which majority are fever cases.
"A lot of cases of upper respiratory tract infections are being seen since the last two weeks. It is usually spreading across families, schools and offices. It's an influenza infection which spreads through droplets just like the case of Covid-19," said Dr Wahab Zubair, general physician from Purani Haveli. He is seeing 40 such patients daily.
What needs to be done to prevent its spread? "Isolate yourself if you have these symptoms, wear a mask around other people, improve your nutrition and maintain good hygiene," said a doctor.