No amount of prayers could save 8-month-old Priyesh, who succumbed to dengue on Friday, after putting up a tough fight for over a month. Doctors at Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital, Andheri, said this was the worst case of dengue they had seen since last monsoon, and Priyesh from Malad was one of its youngest victims.
No amount of prayers could save 8-month-old Priyesh, who succumbed to dengue on Friday, after putting up a tough fight for over a month. Doctors at Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital, Andheri, said this was the worst case of dengue they had seen since last monsoon, and Priyesh from Malad was one of its youngest victims.
Priyesh was admitted to Veena Nursing Home on December 13 after his family realised that he was running high temperature. Three days later, the baby started vomiting blood, prompting the nursing home to ask the family to shift him to a superspecialty set-up at Kokilaben. It was later diagnosed that Priyesh had been afflicted with a dangerous complication of dengue infection – shock syndrome.
"We had run up a bill of Rs 8.5 lakh at Kokilaben as Priyesh was being treated in the paediatric ICU. Each day, we would spend Rs 15,000-20,000 for albumin and antibiotic injections as well as on ICU charges," said Rananjay, the kid's father, an auto driver.
Rananjay said that his son's condition went on a downslide since Thursday afternoon. "Priyesh was breathing very heavily since two days. He was in a lot of discomfort. He was put on ventilator again."
Doctors said that they had done everything possible to save the baby but it succumbed to the dengue shock at last. "His liver had been damaged beyond recovery. His bile levels which had earlier shot up to 25 units had come down to 9 units and over the past two days surged up to 15 units. The bile in his body was 15 times more than the normal levels. He stopped passing urine since Thursday as his kidneys had failed," said Dr Vinay Joshi, consulting paediatrician at the Andheri hospital.
Dr Joshi said Priyesh eventually entered a shock and his heart was unable to pump enough blood throughout the body. "The oxygen supply to the organs was very low. He was sick and getting sicker by the minute."
Priyesh's death certificate mentions that he died of refractory shock, a state that persists in spite of adequate therapy as well as dengue hemorrhagic fever with fulminant hepatic failure, which happens over a few weeks of jaundice and sepsis – an infection-laden condition. The BMC has yet not confirmed his death.
"We cannot confirm at the moment if Priyesh died of dengue. We will have to examine the reports. Dengue is a reportable disease and the hospital has to report it to the BMC," said Sanjay Deshmukh, assistant health commissioner, BMC.
While the number of reported dengue deaths, based death certificates, has crossed 20 since monsoon last year, BMC has confirmed only 12 deaths so far. In 2013, the civic body had reported that 11 persons had 'officially' died of dengue.
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