Covid and dengue 'co-infections' is the new concern in India

New Delhi, Sep 16: As the country has crossed 50 lakh mark with COVID-19 cases, India's new concern is Covid and dengue 'co-infections'.

As both the viral diseases do not have any specific antiviral drug or vaccine, the treatment depends on only clinical conditions and symptoms.

Delhi and West Bengal are registering a rise in co-infection of dengue and COVID-19 with doctors now warning that this combination could enhance the severity of both diseases.
Both the states are in the midst of a worsening Covid outbreak, have now started to see the fatal co-infections.

"Most cases of COVID-19 and dengue are asymptomatic (about 80 per cent), and in a setting of co-infection one disease might enhance the severity of the other," Ashutosh Biswas, professor of Medicine at AIIMS-Delhi, told HT.

The doctor further told that false positivity is high among co-infection cases, which can create diagnostic challenges.

Several hospitals said patients testing positive for Covid are later being diagnosed with dengue infection too, or vice-versa.

Experts say, this creates an extremely critical condition in patients as coronavirus causes blood to clump while dengue causes bleeding that does not allow blood to clot. This creates an extremely critical condition in a patient.

"Both COVID-19 and dengue have unpredictable clinical courses and both generally require hospital monitoring for management. Most hospitals are busy managing COVID-19 and very little window is open for tackling another disease outbreak. IV Fluid therapy is challenging in co-infected patients due to early development of ARDS/pulmonary oedema, and treatment with low molecular weight heparin for management of COVID-19 may enhance bleeding in the presence of dengue, especially with low platelet count," said Dr. Biswas to HT.

Meanwhile, in Maharashtra, a hospital treated a paediatric co-infection, where a 10-year-old was treated of dengue and Covid-19 infection.

The child was brought with complaints of high grade fever along with sore throat, malaise and nausea since the past five days with positive Covid-19 RT-PCR report.