With sharp rise in temperature, many people having infected with food and water-borne diseases have started visiting hospital emergency wards. Doctors of city hospitals confirmed that many patients have been diagnosed with high fever, jaundice, exhaustion, typhoid, heat syncope and other related diseases, mostly due to intake of road-side food. Doctors said that around 50-60 patients with high fever are visiting in Out Patient Department (OPD) daily with summer-related complications.
Dr SP Boytra, Head of Internal Medicine at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital said diseases like heatstroke, heat cramps, high fever, heat exhaustion, heat syncope are common in summer due to high temperature. Secondly, the chances of water and food-borne diseases cannot be ruled out in this season as cases of typhoid, food poising, jaundice, cholera and other infectious diseases commonly reported, he said. “Consuming pre-cut fruits is also dangerous as it may cause food poisoning,” Dr Boytra said.
Patients suffer from rapid sweating when body touches high temperature in heat exhaustion which can further lead to heatstroke that is a medical emergency. Normally, the body cools down by the process of sweating but sometimes it keeps rising, resulted in developing heatstroke, say doctors.
Dr Vikas Maurya, senior consultant and Head of the Department of Pulmonary Medicine at Fortis Shalimar Bagh) said that every year we notice a rise in the number of cases of food and water borne diseases during the summer. This is because people are in habit of drinking water and juice from vendors on roadside that is usually very unhygienic and further create lots of complications.
“There are many who drink water supplied from the civic agency without filtering it. People must filter the water properly or boil it and cool it down before drinking it to avoid water related diseases,” said Dr Maurya.
He also advised that those suffering from Asthma to avoid dust. Dust storm is common these days. Asthma is a condition which causes breathlessness, wheezing, and coughing and chest tightness.
Doctors also informed that an estimated 40 to 50 per cent of the patients who are being brought to various outpatient departments and emergencies in this season are suffering from water-borne diseases like typhoid, cholera, jaundice, dysentery, diarrhea, amoebiasis, vomiting and dehydration.
Apart from this, cases of mosquito-borne diseases are also on the rise. Municipal Corporations have already confirmed 26 dengue, 10 chikungunya and 7 malaria cases.