With rains, respiratory infections on the rise in Bengaluru

With severe rains in the last couple of weeks, Bengaluru hospitals are seeing more cases of fever and respiratory infections.

Though these cases had been rising during the rainy season, they had dipped by August end, say doctors. But with the rains intensifying recently, the numbers are going up again.

These are mostly outpatient cases, and the number of hospitalisations is few.

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Dr Shivaprakash Sosale, pediatrician at Bowring & Lady Curzon Hospital, says, "Since the last one week, upper respiratory tract infections have been increasing among children. The symptoms are cough, cold and fever. We are getting 20 to 25 cases per day, all of which are OPD cases."

Dr Aravinda S N, Consultant, Internal Medicine, at Aster RV Hospital, also says that 50 to 60% of the cases he gets are of fever caused by upper respiratory tract infections. There are also a few admissions here for lower respiratory tract infections. "We are seeing cases of entire families getting infected. One person catches the infection and passes it on to other family members," he says.

Dr Ravindra Mehta, who heads Apollo Hospitals’ Advanced Pulmonary Services, is seeing more cases of upper respiratory tract infections, bronchitis and wheezing.

No spike in gastroenteritis cases

Though cases of gastroenteritis usually increase during rains, doctors across hospitals say there have been no spike so far.

Gastroenteritis and other water-borne diseases like typhoid are expected to increase soon because of water contamination.

Vector-borne diseases like dengue and chikungunya are also expected to increase when water levels recede, and mosquitos start breeding in puddles. "People have to be careful about the next 15 days to avoid these diseases," says Dr Aravinda.

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In slums that are inundated, cases of diarrhoea already exist.

Syed Tousif Masood, programme manager of the Bangalore Homeless Programme, says children they rescued from four flooded settlements in Kadugodi had diarrhoea and bruises. The settlements of around 500 Bengali migrant workers, mainly ragpickers, had got flooded by Tuesday morning. It took all of Tuesday for NGO workers to take move the residents in batches to flood relief camps.

"Flooding must have caused water contamination here. On Wednesday, we conducted a medical camp with the help of the local primary healthcare centre," Masood said.