Viral fever and measles spread in city, hit all from children to adults

 Celsius swing blamed for spurt in infections

SUBHAJOY ROY | TT  | 12.02.24 : Many Kolkatans, children as well as adults, are again down with fever and also suffering from throat infection and runny nose.

Some are also down with measles, said doctors.

The illnesses, the doctors said, are resulting from viral infections, fuelled by temperature fluctuations.

Kolkatans from various parts of the city told The Telegraph on Sunday that they or their family members were down with fever.

A resident of Behala said he had been suffering from mild fever over the past two days. Some of the other symptoms are sore throat and stuffy nose. “It’s painful to swallow anything,” he said.

A resident of Naktala said he had been feeling feverish and also suffering from stuffy nose and irritation in the throat. “I had stopped wearing jackets because of the rise in temperature. Then suddenly there is a drop in the Celsius. The change caught us unawares,” he said.

A resident of Kasba said his wife was running a temperature. “She is also having a headache. She has started taking medicines,” he said.

The minimum temperature had risen above 20 degrees Celsius around February 8 but dropped to below 15 a couple of days ago. Doctors said the sharp variations in temperature was one reason for the spurt in viral infections.

“About 30 per cent of patients in my clinic are presenting symptoms such as fever, stuffy nose and throat infection. A good number of patients are also coming a week after the first manifestation of symptoms, or even later. These people are mainly complaining of a persistent cough even after they have recovered from fever and other problems,” said Amitabha Saha, the head of critical care at AMRI Hospitals, Mukundapur.

Chandramouli Bhattacharya, an infectious disease specialist at Peerless Hospital, too, said a good number patients were reporting similar symptoms.

“Such infections had gone down during the peak of winter but resurfaced in the last one or two weeks. I have not come across people who have gone into a severe stage of the disease yet,” he said.

A week back, some of the patients were also suffering from stomach bug infections, he said.

Bhattacharya said that in the last few weeks he had come across at least three persons suffering from measles.

“One of them was admitted to our hospital and underwent tests for confirmation,” he said. Measles, he said, can be severe in both children and adults and timely identification is necessary.

Paediatrician Apurba Ghosh said: “Some of the children who presented symptoms of viral infections underwent a viral panel test. Some tested positive for the adenovirus,” he said.

Unlike last spring, he said, relatively older children are getting infected this year.

“Last year, most of those affected were a few months old or aged one or two years. This time, however, relatively older children are getting infected and they are coping better,” he said.