http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IE320060718075608&Page=3&Title=Features+-+Health+%26+Science&Topic=168
Bending Chikungunya
Tuesday July 18 2006 18:17 IST
<SMALL>Shubankari P Rao</SMALL>
<SMALL>Chikungunya - a rare viral fever, sent ripples of jitteriness and pressed the panic button in crores of citizens glued to the news channel and pouring over the daily newspaper. After rat fever, another epidemic has struck India - the mysterious chikungunya - a viral epidemic with no clinical confirmation yet. While leptospirosis is rodent borne, chicken guinea is vector borne viral disease. It is transmitted by aedes mosquito Aedes aegyptio,producing dengue like fever but not life threatening like dengue. More prevalent in Africa and South east Asia, aedes mosquito has chosen India for its breeding activity, a country with tropical climate coupled with poor conditions of living, mining, deforestation, new agricultural and irrigational projects and unattended pools of stagnant water.
The disease is characterised by loss of appetite, constipation, fever, mild headache and joint pain severe enough to result bending in the body, rendering the patient immobile probably this disease got its name because of this. chicken guinea or chikugunya is an African term for fever. The disease has nothing to do with bird flu or avian influenza. It is a viral fever.
Monsoon ideal for epidemics
During monsoon, sunlight is prevented from passing down in total, there by helping the disease germs to flourish uninterruptedly from the sharp rays of the sun. The sudden onset of monsoon after recession of an extended hot summer diminishes the normal health status of an average individual forcing him prone to diseases is the Ayurvedic version.
An insensible diet and lifestyle further contribute for the illness, and make us susceptible to many diseases like lepto spirosis, cholera and chicken guinea. It is time for us to keep our body resistant against diseases by boosting our immunity and taking timely precaution against these diseases.
Other Causes
1. Drinking contaminated water.
2. Living in unhygienic conditions
3. Clogged drainage system
4. Uncleaned garbage
5. Manure heaps
At the times of epidemics like this one instead of pushing mass vaccination in the population with many unknown results and insufficient data showing the adverse reaction to the vaccine it makes sense to educate and inform people of the many basic common sense steps they can take to actually improve immune function.
Steps to control spreading of disease:
1. Take utmost care to prevent mosquito breeding in your vicinity.
2. Keep the container vessels used for storing water, dry for 24hrs (one day) in a week so that eggs will die. This will help in breaking the transmission cycle.
3. Use appropriate repellents while working in the fields.
4. Fill in the ditches and cover the containers where water stagnates
5. Stock ponds with fish.They eat mosquito eggs.
6. Use insecticides judiciously in right places
7. Insect screen the homes.
8. Plant water hungry trees to dry out muddy soil
9. By using bed nets.
Role of diet
During rainy season, adopt a diet which is light, hot and which contains all the six tastes. Avoid oily or very dry food items and drink moderate fluids.
Precautions during infection
Reside in a room devoid of breeze
Wear thick warm clothes
Use only boiled water for drinking Boiling the water and reducing it to 1/8th, 1/4th or 1/2 of the original quantity.
Freshly boiled and cooled water is recommended for patients suffering from burning sensation diarrhea, bleeding disorder alcoholism, poisoning, thirst, vomiting etc.
Steps Of Treatment
Fasting is necessary at the early stages of fever.
Digestive drug therapy - To digest the residual toxins remaining after fasting and to increase digestive fire, the patient should be made to drink gruel or soup of rice or green gram with adjuvant pepper, long pepper, root of long pepper and ginger. To provide enough nourishment raisins, pomegranate, dates etc are added.
Milder purificatory drugs are later administered to eliminate the stagnant toxins especially in fevers like chicken guinea.
Administration of medicines- Ayurveda is packed with innumerable preparations for fever with which it could be treated effectively.
(The writer can be contacted at Shubha Ayurvedic center, Bangalore-04, Ph - 080-26578620)</SMALL>
Bending Chikungunya
Tuesday July 18 2006 18:17 IST
<SMALL>Shubankari P Rao</SMALL>
<SMALL>Chikungunya - a rare viral fever, sent ripples of jitteriness and pressed the panic button in crores of citizens glued to the news channel and pouring over the daily newspaper. After rat fever, another epidemic has struck India - the mysterious chikungunya - a viral epidemic with no clinical confirmation yet. While leptospirosis is rodent borne, chicken guinea is vector borne viral disease. It is transmitted by aedes mosquito Aedes aegyptio,producing dengue like fever but not life threatening like dengue. More prevalent in Africa and South east Asia, aedes mosquito has chosen India for its breeding activity, a country with tropical climate coupled with poor conditions of living, mining, deforestation, new agricultural and irrigational projects and unattended pools of stagnant water.
The disease is characterised by loss of appetite, constipation, fever, mild headache and joint pain severe enough to result bending in the body, rendering the patient immobile probably this disease got its name because of this. chicken guinea or chikugunya is an African term for fever. The disease has nothing to do with bird flu or avian influenza. It is a viral fever.
Monsoon ideal for epidemics
During monsoon, sunlight is prevented from passing down in total, there by helping the disease germs to flourish uninterruptedly from the sharp rays of the sun. The sudden onset of monsoon after recession of an extended hot summer diminishes the normal health status of an average individual forcing him prone to diseases is the Ayurvedic version.
An insensible diet and lifestyle further contribute for the illness, and make us susceptible to many diseases like lepto spirosis, cholera and chicken guinea. It is time for us to keep our body resistant against diseases by boosting our immunity and taking timely precaution against these diseases.
Other Causes
1. Drinking contaminated water.
2. Living in unhygienic conditions
3. Clogged drainage system
4. Uncleaned garbage
5. Manure heaps
At the times of epidemics like this one instead of pushing mass vaccination in the population with many unknown results and insufficient data showing the adverse reaction to the vaccine it makes sense to educate and inform people of the many basic common sense steps they can take to actually improve immune function.
Steps to control spreading of disease:
1. Take utmost care to prevent mosquito breeding in your vicinity.
2. Keep the container vessels used for storing water, dry for 24hrs (one day) in a week so that eggs will die. This will help in breaking the transmission cycle.
3. Use appropriate repellents while working in the fields.
4. Fill in the ditches and cover the containers where water stagnates
5. Stock ponds with fish.They eat mosquito eggs.
6. Use insecticides judiciously in right places
7. Insect screen the homes.
8. Plant water hungry trees to dry out muddy soil
9. By using bed nets.
Role of diet
During rainy season, adopt a diet which is light, hot and which contains all the six tastes. Avoid oily or very dry food items and drink moderate fluids.
Precautions during infection
Reside in a room devoid of breeze
Wear thick warm clothes
Use only boiled water for drinking Boiling the water and reducing it to 1/8th, 1/4th or 1/2 of the original quantity.
Freshly boiled and cooled water is recommended for patients suffering from burning sensation diarrhea, bleeding disorder alcoholism, poisoning, thirst, vomiting etc.
Steps Of Treatment
Fasting is necessary at the early stages of fever.
Digestive drug therapy - To digest the residual toxins remaining after fasting and to increase digestive fire, the patient should be made to drink gruel or soup of rice or green gram with adjuvant pepper, long pepper, root of long pepper and ginger. To provide enough nourishment raisins, pomegranate, dates etc are added.
Milder purificatory drugs are later administered to eliminate the stagnant toxins especially in fevers like chicken guinea.
Administration of medicines- Ayurveda is packed with innumerable preparations for fever with which it could be treated effectively.
(The writer can be contacted at Shubha Ayurvedic center, Bangalore-04, Ph - 080-26578620)</SMALL>