With the onset of Covid-19 pandemic, governments around the world have started taking health seriously and on priority. Dengue outbreak in the country is not new. Every year thousands of people get affected by dengue fever. At present there is no cure for this viral infection transmitted to humans through the bite of infected mosquitoes.
Now the government has become serious in dealing with the disease. For this, THSTI (Transitional Health Science and Technology Institute) of the Department of Biotechnology has tied up with DNDI (Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative) India Foundation.
Under this agreement, an effective dengue drug will be developed within the next five years. As per the scheme, government and non-government organisations will jointly research and develop effective, safe and cheap medicine for dengue. An officer familiar with this scheme has given this information.
According to statistics, there are 39 crore dengue infection cases every year in about a hundred countries. 70% of these cases are found in Asia. In 2021, there were 164,103 dengue cases in India while in 2019 there were 205,243 new cases.
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No cure for dengue till now
THSTI Executive Director Pramod Kumar Garg said that as of now there is no antiviral medicine for dengue. In this case the use of vaccine is also limited.
Although research is being done for the treatment of dengue, but till now we have not been able to get any effective result in this direction.
He said that this is why it is important that there is an increase in efforts in this direction so that millions of people can be saved from its ill effects.
He said that partnership with DNDI India Foundation is an important step in this direction. With this they will be able to develop effective medicine.
How research will be done
Under this partnership, pre-clinical studies will be done for the treatment of dengue.
In this, medicines prepared from before will be used to test how much effective they are on dengue.
Along with this, new methods of affordable and accessible treatment will also be discovered.
The combination of two medicines will also be tested in clinical trials.
These drugs will be tested at different stages of the disease in patients.
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Symptoms in dengue
Dengue is one of the 10 biggest public health risks in the world.
In India, dengue disease spreads rapidly during the monsoon.
There is fever, restlessness, vomiting and extreme pain in the body.
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In case of severe conditions, internal bleeding starts in the patient.
In such cases many organs stop functioning leading to death of patients.
