Since Thursday, two girls have been hospitalized in the Infectious Diseases department of the Santissima Trinità hospital in Cagliari for Dengue after a trip to two Asian countries: the Maldives and Indonesia. The young women complained of severe pain and very high body temperature, the symptoms of "bone-breaking fever". The head of the department Goffredo Angioni raises the alarm: «Before traveling to high-risk countries it is advisable to consult the Public Hygiene Service of the Local Health Authority». With the viral disease, transmitted by the killer mosquito, there is no therapy, the only form of prevention is represented by the Q Denga vaccine, approved last year by the Ministry of Health".
The cases
The first to arrive yesterday in the infectious disease department was a 36-year-old young woman from Settimo San Pietro who had just returned from a holiday in the Maldives. Immediately afterwards it was the turn of a 27-year-old girl from Iglesias who had been on holiday in Indonesia a few days earlier. The two women are better and are being followed with particular attention by the Santissima doctors.
In February, a 50-year-old man from Cagliari who was returning from Barbados was infected with Dengue.
"It's an imported disease," explains Angioni. «Up to now we have not recorded any indigenous cases». That doesn't mean there haven't been any. «Identifying Dangue is not easy, the symptoms are similar to those of the flu, although more violent. To diagnose it you need to go and look for it." This is why the numbers are not high. "Certainly there are cases of people who have contracted it but, without discovering it and treating it independently, have not reported it."
Bone-breaking fever is a viral disease that can be dangerous if left untreated. «There is no therapy, we administer Tachipirina to patients to reduce the temperature. The only form of prevention is the vaccine approved last year."
Defeated meningitis
Good news however for the 23 year old tennis player from Olbia o, athlete of the Moneta Tennis Club of La Maddalena, who on 14 April was admitted to the Santissima Trinità for meningococcal meningitis. «The young man has been discharged – says Angioni – from an infectious point of view everything is fine».