The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Incidences of infectious diseases on the rise in city

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jun 30, 2005

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Incidences of infectious diseases on the rise in city

Divya Ramamurthi

BANGALORE: Incidences of infectious diseases such as chickenpox, measles and mumps are increasing in the city every year. At the Epidemics Diseases Hospital, five persons have been admitted to the hospital with chickenpox in the past two weeks. Infected persons continue to come to the hospital, says Veeresh Sharma, hospital director. Two persons with mumps also got admitted to the hospital last Thursday.

Three persons were admitted to the Indira Gandhi Institute of Child Health a month ago with chicken pox, say doctors. At the Bangalore Children's Hospital, paediatrician Sanchita Nath says, several cases of chickenpox were received in March.

Chickenpox is a virus of the herpes family, which causes blister-like rash, itching, tiredness and fever. The rash appears first on the trunk and face, but can spread over the entire body causing between 250 to 500 itchy blisters. It spreads from person to person by direct contact or through the air when an infected person coughs or sneezes. Chickenpox is contagious one to two days before the rash appears on the infected person and until all blisters have formed scabs. It takes from 10 to 21 days after contact with an infected person for someone to develop chickenpox.

Mumps is a viral infection that primarily affects the parotid glands — one of three pairs of salivary glands. It mostly occurs in children. Measles is an infectious viral disease that begins with a fever that lasts for a couple of days, followed by cough, running nose and conjunctivitis.

Dr. Sharma says that chickenpox and measles have become endemic and that it affects citizens all year through. "No longer do we refer to chickenpox as a summer disease," he says.

In 2000, there were 288 admissions for chickenpox and 249 admissions for measles at the Epidemics Diseases Hospital. The incidence of chickenpox rose to 424 in 2001. In 2002, the admissions were 376 and in 2003 and 2004, it rose to 574 and 934 respectively.

In the case of measles, admissions at the hospital in 2001 were 152. In 2002, the cases came down to 78. Again in 2003 and 2004, they jumped to 264 and 452 respectively.

In the hospital there were 265 cases of mumps in 2000, this went down to 177 and 132 in 2001and 2002 respectively. In 2003, there were 275 cases and in 2004, it was 274. The incidences of these three infections continue to increase despite a vaccine to protect against them. This is mainly because the vaccines are expensive.

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