Dengue fever sounds like a barrel of laughs while you're in Thailand
In Phuket we’ve had two deaths so far this year as a result of dengue fever. Reported cases on the island are up as with the rest of Thailand. I wasn’t particularly worried about catching dengue fever until I found out that two of the guys from work have had it in the past.
Contrary to popular belief, dengue fever is not solely contracted by babies and infants. About half of all cases in Phuket are of people between 10 and 24 years old. The exact number of cases on the island is anybody’s guess – stats in Phuket are useless because nobody is sure how many people there are on the island compared to how many people are registered citizens. The numbers of cases of dengue this year, however, run into the hundreds.
So, if there is a chance that I might catch dengue fever, I’d like to know how, and also what I am going to go through if I do get it because there is no known vaccination. Dengue fever is spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which feeds during the day.
Symtpoms of dengue fever include a fever (as you’d expect), headaches, muscle and joint pains, rashes and vomiting. The disease is known as the bone-crusher disease†in some parts. But it can’t be that bad, can it?
One of the guys at work wrote an article about it today, detailing the time he caught dengue. Here are a few excerpts:
Within about 30 minutes my condition went form normal to bad – very bad. I felt so bad that I was really afraid that if I fell asleep I might not ever wake up. Fortunately, I did wake up the next morning, but the misery continued. It took me almost a month to feel normal again. I heard a high-pitched echo in my head and I felt like I had strong electric currents discharging in my brain. I have had a lot of painful experiences in life, but there is nothing like dengue.
Man I don’t want to catch that.
Techno' tags: Thailand, Dengue fever
August 28th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
My girlfriend got that a month ago, I sleep next to her and for some reason I haven't gotten it yet. Maybe they don't like my sweat or something.
I suggest a good supply of citronela candles and spray on repellent.
Keep eating fruit and get over those colds you get. A high immune system is needed to fight off this.
It's called bone-crusher because your joints act like they have severe arthritis the entire time. The rashes come after all the other symptoms leave, just to remind you that one mosquito can really FSU. So yes it is that bad, however some people probably get it worse than others thanks to the immune factor, plus there are four different strains, one of which can cause internal bleeding and as such it is usually the killer one. The other strains vary in thier intensity and lethality.
Catching one strain does not make you immune to the other three.
Nasty stuff, get the repellent. Maybe one of those zapper rackets since only daytime mosquitos carry this.
August 28th, 2007 at 6:39 pm
There was an item of news about the disease a while ago on the Bangkok Recorder website:
http://www.bangkokrecorder.com/news/news/dengue-fever-alert-956.html
Here are some of my comments from the site:
"Dengue fever is widespread in the rainy season. It is quite a nasty disease. I once suffered from this disease myself. I thought I was going to die.
In rural areas, people don't usually cover up their water tanks or pots properly, mosquitos thus will be able to lay eggs in those containers. That's why many people get the disease. Still, mosquitos can lay their eggs anywhere they can find water.
Apart from having those symptoms, Dengue fever can make you want to puke and excrete too. So, make sure you don't get it because you will certainly need a hospital."
I advise that before you leave your place to do your daily business, you should make sure that you spray insecticide indooors.
August 28th, 2007 at 7:19 pm
few years ago singapore suffer from a big dengue fever outbreak. interesting was to see how the goverment deal with this, start a hugh campaign and declare the war on mosquitos. big groups of officials and volunteers roam to the streets and neighbourhoods on a search and destroy mission, eliminate every possible breeding ground.
you can see posters everywhere how to prevent mosquitos from breeding and i am sure every singapore resident knows about the danger.
there is a good and detailed website,
just have a look here which corners of your house you have to keep under control
http://www.dengue.gov.sg/subject.asp?id=100
don't use to much chemicals, because they may harm you and also harm the natural enemy of mosquitos – the geckos.
August 28th, 2007 at 7:53 pm
Yes, a nasty disease. And unlike malaria, nothing can be done against it yet. Just rely on your own immune system.
August 28th, 2007 at 10:18 pm
I also understand it can get much more serious the second time you get it – not sure if the same or a different strain, but I think thats when most of the deaths occur (at least that's what we were told when I previously lived in a dengue fever prone area).
Those damn mossies – are they good for anything?
August 29th, 2007 at 1:16 am
they are good for something, at least the mosquito larvae. as a young boy i spend summertime to catch them with a dip net and feed them to the fishes in my aquarium. was fun to watch how the fishes catch them.
so having a fancy fish tank at your home maybe can help to keep the mosquito population under control.
and mosquitos don't like coriander/cilantro. No kidding! it's not the herb of satan as some argue. and goods news – it's a basic ingredients in thai food. i love that in my food, and mosquitos don't bite me. i never had to use that smelly repellent spray or lotion.
my most painful experiences in life instead was driving a motobike in thailand. and that was really a bone-crusher on different parts of my body. following by a bad treatment in a thai hospital, so that my ankle had to fracture and operate again few month later when i was back home. not my fault, one year of my life on crutches because some stupid car driver push me of the road. he fleed the scene.
so drive extra carefully, or better choose a aquarium as a hobby instead of riding motobike, overcome your coriander antipathy, eat lot of fruits to fight those colds you suffer from and get a haircut.
August 29th, 2007 at 2:45 am
I got Dengue a long time back Koh Phang-ngan and while i was taking the boat to Samui it really hit me something. I was stuck in my guesthouse bungalow and could barely move for the first few days besides going to ask for a bottle of water. It was the forth day when someone took me to the hospital.
Dengue is really terrible, i was down and out for over a week and most times i could barely move.
I got Hepatitis A in Pakistan a few months after that (Ok, you are sick for much longer) but still it wasn't as brutally hard-hitting as Dengue.Fever.
August 29th, 2007 at 3:03 am
I had mumps when I was at uni and I got one of the worst cases the doctor had seen during that outbreak. That knocked me out for a couple of weeks and was pretty horrendous. I'd rather not catch dengue to do a comparison though.
August 29th, 2007 at 3:28 am
There is another fever going through Bangkok these days (at least). You sweat like hell all night and feel cold, you feel very tired and everything is a terrible effort, but there is no associated coughing. You also have little or no appetite. You don't particularly feel sleepy just numb. Paracetamol, aspirin or nurofen do not seem to have any effect. It lasts about a week and you really feel like shit. I had that one last week. Then a friend reported the same and another one. Anybody hit recently?
August 29th, 2007 at 6:20 am
I had dengue fever when I was 5 years old. I spent about 2 months in hospital. All I remember was spending Christmas and New Year's in the hospital, nurses taking blood from my legs because they've ran out of areas to get blood from my arms, and lots and lots of crackers.
September 27th, 2007 at 1:55 pm
My family and I were in Phuket in April 2007 and my hubbie and I both ended up with Dengue. Hubbie got it the second last day of our holiday (we had been at Surin Beach and were then at Patong). He started with Vomiting (on the beach) and fevers and chills. Somehow we got him home on the plane the next night (with lots of medication for diahrreoa) I got it the next day (in the supermarket!) and had to go straight home. We pretty well slept for the next week and didn't eat much. I had the rash,muscle aches, eye aches, headaches. It took 10 days to be diagnosed with it and a few weeks to go back to work. Thank God our kids didn't get it. It really took months to get over and some days (some 6 months later) it still feels like it again. Hasn't turned me off Thailand though. We had a great holiday!!