Daijiworld Media Network - Puttur (SP)

Puttur, May 14: As soon as symptoms of fever appears, people have been rushing to the clinics or their family doctors to get treated. They are staying away from visiting the government health centres as they know that coronavirus tests would be performed there and they are afraid that it might give positive report.

At a time when corona positive cases are on the rise in the district, dengue, viral fever and other such fevers have been proliferating in rural areas. Even though most of the corona cases were witnessed in the urban areas of the district, many in rural areas too suffer from fever. Because of sudden changes in the climate, people living in villages in Sullia and Puttur taluks suffer from one or the other kind of fever.

Because of coronavirus, cases of dengue and viral fever in these two taluks are not coming to light. There has been an increase in the people getting themselves checked every day. Because of untimely rain in between sunny and cloudy weather, climatic changes are volatile, as a result of which people suffer from fever.

People are aware that they have to visit fever clinic as soon as they experience symptoms of fever, but they are worried as symptoms of Covid19 and common fever are similar. The viral fever spreads from one person to the other as it is infectious. Those suffering from cold and fever should not be touched, no shake hand, and they should cover their faces with kerchief when coughing or sneezing, the doctors say, when also adding that there is no need to be apprehensive. They however advice to be careful.

The dengue cases in rural belts of Sullia and Puttur taluks are more. A few years back, Chikungunya and dengue had become rampant and played havoc with the lives of the people. Even though the health department tried to regulate these diseases, it found that it is difficult to control them as these diseases are spread through mosquitos. Now, dengue which appeared three months before the start of the monsoon, has been spreading. Due to untimely rain, mosquitos have grown in numbers. In houses too, large number of mosquitos are experienced at night. The breeding of mosquitos can be stopped if the water in pits either gets evaporated due to several days of sunshine or the water gets washed away due to heavy rain, the health department officials say.

This time, death due to dengue has been less. But if the people, out of corona fear, stay away from getting treated, it can prove to be dangerous.