Daijiworld Media Network - Mangalore (SP)

Mangalore, Jul 1: Kasturba Medical College physicians Dr B Srinivas Kakkilaya, Dr B Shantaram Baliga and Dr M Chakrapani have come out with a press release, giving simple tips on diagnosing different diseases that have had a crippling affect on the lives of the people of the district. These tips are aimed at simplifying the task of diagnosing diseases like dengue, chikungunya and malaria and are meant for the use by medical fraternity.

They have said, that the evident symptoms of dengue are severe headache and muscle pain. Even movement of eye balls becomes painful.

In the case of chikungunya, reddish rashes appear on the face, followed with rashes on the chest on the second or third day. Rashes spread to the legs and trunk on the next two days, they explained. Both dengue and chikungunya are self-limiting infections not needing any specific treatment. Symptomatic treatments like analgesics like paracetamol to ease fever and joint pain can be used, they have suggested.

Joint pain and muscle pain as well as rashes might not be too evident in malaria. Simple blood and urine tests can confirm the presence or otherwise of malaria. Presence of malaria can be confirmed by examining a peripheral blood smear.

The total leukocyte count is low in chikungunya and dengue and very high in leptosprirosis. In leptospirosis, even kidneys get affected. As such, testing of urine samples helps in diagnosis, the doctors have stated.