New Delhi: A multi-centric observational study revealed that dengue, scrub typhus, encephalitis, and malaria are the major reasons for ICU admissions of tropical fever patients in the country.
The study, conducted at 34 ICUs across India on 456 critically ill adults and children with non-localised fever, found that dengue (105.23 per cent) was the most common reason for ICU admissions across India during post-monsoon season between August and October. It was followed by scrub typhus (83.18 per cent), encephalitis (44.96 per cent), malaria (37.8 per cent), and bacterial sepsis (32.7 per cent).
The study was done between July 2013 and September 2014 and was published last month in the Indian Journal of Critical Care Medicine. The study included hospitals like Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, New Delhi; PGIMER, Chandigarh; CMC Vellore; PGIMS, Haryana; and PGIMS, Rohtak among others.
The study revealed that more than half (58.7 per cent) the patients were admitted during the post-monsoon season (August-October) and with a case fatality of 18.4 per cent, nearly a fifth of all ICU resources were consumed by these illnesses.
According to Dr Prakash Shastri, an author and vice-chairman of the department of critical care medicine at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, tropical fevers are caused by a number of viruses, bacteria, and protozoa and often get transmitted by insect bites. Some of the common tropical fevers from the Asian countries are dengue, malaria, leptospirosis, influenza A, typhoid, scrub typhus, Japanese encephalitis, and chikungunya.
