Let’s Fight Dengue!

Dengue fever can be divided into three phases: febrile, critical and recovery.

The febrile phase comprises of fever that lasts three to five days. During this phase, the patient experiences fever, joint pain, muscle pain, headaches and other symptoms mentioned earlier.

After three to five days, the patient enters the critical phase. This lasts between 48 to 72 hours. During this phase, the patient recovers from fever but there is a fall in platelet count and white blood cell count. Following that, the patient starts showing different symptoms. Some of them do not has serious symptoms whereas some experience complications such as internal bleeding, water retention in the lungs or stomach, low blood pressure, kidney failure and liver failure as well as coma.

This can lead to death.

After 48 to 72 hours, the patient will go through the recovery phase where dengue symptoms dissipate while blood platelets and white blood cells return to normal count.

On average and from end to end, it takes seven to 10 days before a dengue patient starts recovering from the disease. The following diagram is from the 2015 Management of Dengue Infection in Adults – Malaysia Clinical Practise Guidelines. It explains all three phases: