Source: www.forbes.com
He’s 26 years old.
A Professional. An engineer to be exact.
Single. A good guy.
The fever was abrupt in onset, accompanied by headache, muscle ache & joint pains. He went to a GP and got treated for flu-like illness, no blood was taken and all he got was a pain-relief injection for his headache and muscle aches.
At day 3 of fever he checked himself into our Emergency Department with a blood pressure of 60/40. He was already in septic-shock.
Approximately 3.5 litre of fluid was infused rapidly into his veins and we managed to bring his Blood Pressure back up to a near normal range.
Unfortunately, his blood vessel started to ‘leak’ and it was so great that he had lost most of his circulating fluids back into his abdominal cavity and lungs causing him to deteriorate rapidly in the wee hour of the following morning.
He was immediately intubated and put on rapid fluid infusion along with inotropic drugs to sustain his dying vital organ’s perfusion.
A little less than 24 hours after he came to the Emergency Department, his lifeless body laid in the Intensive Care Unit.
One of the many blood investigations that were sent earlier to the laboratory came back that morning.
It was dengue.
This is the personal opinion of the writer and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Medical Gazette.
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