Woman dies of dengue fever-induced complications

PUNE: A 72-year-old woman from

Erandwane

succumbed to dengue fever-induced encephalopathy on October 1, taking the disease casualty count to 10 in the last three months in the city.

Encephalopathy is a relatively uncommon neurological complication of dengue fever, which is considered a non-neurotropic disease.

The woman,

Alka Garde

, who resided near

Mhatre Bridge

developed flu-like symptoms on September 22. “She had fever with chills. Her condition worsened later. She was disoriented and talked irrelevant,” said a doctor from Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospital (DMH) where the woman was admitted on September 25.

“The woman suffered liver failure, which led to the development of encephalopathy in her case. Encephalopathy is seen in a dengue patient either because of kidney or liver failure,” the doctor said.

The woman had no other underlying medical condition. “She had tested positive for dengue antibody test (IgM), which is a confirmatory test of dengue,” the doctor said.

Her condition further worsened and she was put on ventilator. “She died of dengue fever with hepatitis (liver infection) and dengue encephalopathy (brain inflammation) on October 1,” the doctor said.

Most forms of the dengue disease are self-limiting and vary from relatively mild increase in body temperature to classic, incapacitating dengue fever. “When dengue gets complicated, it progresses to the stage of dengue haemorrhagic fever and further to dengue shock syndrome,” Abhijit Joshi of Joshi hospital said.