Not all viral fevers are induced by coronavirus

Hyderabad: Even if someone sneezes, people around raise an alarm. But doctors say it is common especially after the rains but thanks to the coronavirus scare, people are sacred to the hilt.

Coronavirus is an infectious disease and rapidly spreading worldwide, but not all viral fevers are coronavirus, few similar symptoms of flu or cold might be easily mistaken for covid-19 explains doctors of Hyderabad.

Coronavirus has similar symptoms to flu or common cold, few symptoms include fever, cough, diarrhoea, illness and breathing issues. Due to changes in weather, it is very common for anyone to experience cold, cough or flu like symptoms and there is no need to panic.

"Mostly in the months of July, August and September in India, there will be a high number of suspecting cases for swine flu or other viral infections. So, if a patient is coming with symptoms similar to both flu and coronavirus, we are prescribing a flu vaccine of 75mg according to the symptoms and it's working well.

This might not help in curing the diseases but it reduces the impact and it indirectly protects patients from any other flu and also reduces the viral load in the body," said Dr K Shankar, Superintendent, Fever Hospital.

"I strongly suggest that people stay clean and stay safe being at home as there is a chance for viral spread only if they go out. Now, we observe a great decrease in the number of patients visiting our hospital and we hope they are keeping safe at home and taking necessary precautions. We have around 600 out-patients per day against 1,500 patients on each day of every flu season.

As well in-patients are reduced to single digit counts against at least 30 to 40 cases on an average. This is all because of two reasons, one might be people are taking enough precautions and maintaining hygiene, second reason might be that people are scared to visit hospitals in the pandemic," he added.

"Mostly in this monsoon season, fevers like chikungunya and dengue might be mistaken as coronavirus. When we face such cases and are in condition that we could not identify whether it's coronavirus or a viral infection, we are observing the patient for the first three days to understand if the symptoms are developing.

These three days we treat patients with normal antibiotics and in extreme cases we are suggesting patients to undergo covid testing," said Dr Raju, in-charge, Community Health Centre (CHC), Malkajgiri.

Unlike all the flu seasons, this year CHC has reported less number of patients in both the in-patient and out-patients wards and it might be due to coronavirus scare, say the doctors. In this flu season, CHC is recording 90 to 200 out-patients against the 300 to 400 cases every year.

Whereas only 10 to 15 in patients are being admitted against 30 to 40 regular in-patients in the hospital due to coronavirus pandemic.