As the festive season comes to an end, the season in Kolkata starts to take a sharp turn. While the sun continues to give warmth during the day, the evenings and early mornings witness a dip in temperatures. And with this change in season, fever becomes a common phenomenon in almost every household, be it in the districts or in the city. In fact, the fever you see at this time can have a variety of causes: viral, seasonal, mosquito borne (such as malaria and dengue) – and doctors’ first line of action is usually to detect the cause. Of course, this is what your doctor will do when you consult him or her – but for your knowledge, what are the symptoms to look out for? How soon should you consult a doctor? How can you manage the fever at home? To answer these and other questions, we met up with Dr. Sibabrata Banerjee, Senior Consultant Physician at Apollo Multispecialty Hospitals, Kolkata.
Dr. Banerjee started by highlighting the fact that at this time, fever is present in almost every household. The main symptoms of any fever are temperature and headache. The additional symptoms are what help doctors to identify the causes even before they send the patient for testing. For instance, Dr. Banerjee tells us that fever along with cold, cough, sneezing, sore throat, and related symptoms is usually an indication that a virus has attacked the respiratory system or airways. Examples of the virus causing the symptoms could be covid or influenza which are the commonest and some other related viruses.
Talking about statistic, Dr. Banerjee says that a simple observation shows that the incidence of influenza is in some cases much higher than that of Covid. In other words, many more people have been affected by influenza than by Covid. In fact, Swine flu is another form of influenza, which is known in medical terms as H1N1. Swine Flu is also far more contagious than influenza and as a result, many more people are affected by it. Symptoms are high fever, sore throat, shortness of breath, cough etc. In some cases, the patient's condition becomes so critical that he may even need to be admitted to hospital.
So, in case you notice serious symptoms, how should you handle that? Dr. Banerjee tells us that the best bet is to act quickly in case you or someone you know has fever along with any of these symptoms. Consult your doctor at the earliest as there is access to an anti-viral drug that can cure this fever, whereas neglecting it and letting it worse can only increase its severeness.
On the other hand, patients may also have fever that is not viral in nature or they may have fever but no cold or cough. In such cases, the doctor tells us that you need to be doubly careful. This pattern of symptoms could indicate something far more serious such as malaria, typhoid, dengue etc. The best course of action, especially at this time when these diseases are being seen in large numbers, is to exercise caution and consult the doctor at the earliest.
So, whatever be the nature of the fever - be aware. Do not self-medicate with Paracetamol if you have fever. Instead, consult a doctor. And the expert doctors of Apollo Multispecialty Hospital are always by your side.
This article has been produced on behalf of Apollo Multispeciality Hospital by ABP Digital Brand Studio.
