Doctors have said that Dengue patients will not be able to donate blood for six months after recovering. They have also asked Dengue patients to stay inside the mosquito net for ten days after recovery. This has been done from the belief that Dengue may spread through blood.
One such person is Safayet Ahmed who used to help others when blood was needed. However, Safayet suffered Dengue and his platelet count fell from 150,000 to 12,000. However, after he recovered he came back home but was terribly weak.
Doctors asked him to drink plenty of liquid, advising him to take adequate rest. A few days later, when a child with Dengue needed blood, Safayet could not extend his arm to help because he had suffered Dengue.
Doctors have said that Dengue virus remains in the body of a patient for seven to ten days and if during this time, that person is bitten by a mosquito, which then bites a healthy man, the latter will also develop Dengue.
The Aedes Aegypti is the main carrier of the Dengue virus and assistant professor of virology department of Shahid Suhrawardy Hospital, Dr Zahidur Rahman, says: “Blood from an infected person can easily be transferred to another person by a mosquito and therefore, a patient has to remain inside a mosquito net. Also, there needs to be caution even if fever subsides because due to falling platelets, the patient may develop other complications.”
Naturally, people will stand by the Dengue affected to give blood but if someone has recovered then s/he has to wait six months before giving blood, he added.
Blood disease specialist Dr Guljar Hossain, adds: “Fever will develop within 3 to 10 days of being bitten, the fever may disappear after three days and then, come back on the 6th day. The period after the temperature has fallen is the critical time. People often go into shock at this period and platelets continue to fall.”
Once blood pressure is back to normal on the seventh day of the fever, additional liquid will not be required, but generally, a person should drink 2 litres of water every day, he advised.