In the grip of viral and other fevers

Fevers have long ceased to be a highly dreaded disease, particularly after cure for malaria and typhoid has become available. The same cannot be said about the various types of fever this country, particularly the capital city is witnessing right now. Dengue has been a killer disease for some years. Chikungunia and zaika have colluded with it to make the matter worse. Add to this the new variant of nagging corona that is reluctant to go once and for all. If these types of ailments are not enough, this year's worst fever bane commonly known seasonal flu has assumed the acronym 'viral fever'. It is not usually a life-threatening disease but it is so painful, life-sapping and its impacts are so prolonging that it severely disrupts normal life. Especially vulnerable and affected are children and the elderly with the latter taking far more time to recover than the younger ones. 

Among the political ruckus, the voices of the health and family welfare adviser as also the chief of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) are barely heard. But this is a health emergency that no government was found to be so callously indifferent to. More attention was needed to be paid to the types of fever the symptoms of which are more or less similar and but may have developed strains quite different. For example, dengue has become somewhat untraceable with doctors claiming that the disease often eluding RT-PCR, NS1antigen tests and lgM/lgG antibody tests. They suspect a person had dengue only when the patient had far lower platelet counts than what a normal person should possesses. 

There are few homes in this capital city which are blessed not have a patient of one or the other fever with viral fever and dengue dominating the scene. The problem here is that early detection is next to nothing because the testing facilities are not easily accessible and public health service has never been developed to cope with any such health emergency. It is a glaring failure on the part of the health and family welfare adviser and the DGHS to respond to this emergency. Their ostrich-like evasive action has only made the public incredulous about their capacity to deliver. Administration has nosedived in every walk of life but when there is a thin line between life and death posing to be a pandemic, such an indifference is really unacceptable. 

There was a need for allocation of special fund for a serious study on such strange strains of fever by reputed health institutes and requesting the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh to independently or in collaboration with others to look into the viral and other fevers. The common people are confused and the severe headache, a common feature of the viral fever, makes this year's one all the more fearsome. Those who suffer from the fever become feeble to the point of occasional dizzying bouts and in some cases collapse. 

In circumstances like this, people need some health guidance and emergency detection of their fever type. But the ministry concerned and the DGHS seem to be oblivious of their duties. They would neither inform the public of what to do and what not to do. In fact, they are totally unconcerned. When there was a need for developing testing facilities and, in serious cases, extended accommodation for patients, the duos seem to have gone into hibernation. Health conditions do not tolerate delay but when patients are not precisely diagnosed, how can physicians treat them? 

Covid-19 has exposed how ill-prepared the world is to any epidemic. This country's puny health budget this year has once again shown, that the poor and the middle-class people have more to rely on their fate than the country's health system. If an assessment of the medical bills, loss of work and energy caused by this latest spate of fevers is accurately assessed, it is likely to be huge. Institutes like the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies and the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics may carry out such a study to determine this year's financial and other losses. But the more important thing is to determine the variants of fevers in order to clearly inform the public about their nature and the early remedy. Fumigation now continued in the DNCC in the morning is the worst decision any city corporation has ever taken.