DENGUE, a potentially deadly viral disease spread through the bite of a dengue-carrying mosquito, can be a mother’s nightmare once her children become infected. Two mothers, Chichi Talosig and Celenia Galvan, learned from personal experience that dengue, which starts out as a seemingly ordinary bout with fever, should not be taken  for granted.

For one thing, dengue is already a year-long disease—no longer limited to just the wet season. Second, Filipino researchers discovered that, contrary to the popular belief that dengue mosquitoes only bite during the day, there is actually a dengue-carrying mosquito that bites aggressively at night.

Not “just a fever”
Mommy Chichi Talosig thought at first that her two kids were just having the usual seasonal fever last August. Little did she know that they were already infected with the dengue virus.

“My daughter Ysa [Ysabel Pauline] texted me one day, saying she was feeling very weak. She could hardly walk. So she had to come home before school was dismissed,” recalls Chichi.

Chichi thought that Ysa’s weakness was due to fatigue.  Ysa, who’s in second year college at the University of Santo Tomas, is into taekwondo, and she had resumed training after a long lay-off.

The next day, Ysa had a high fever, peaking at 39.5 degrees Celsius. Then it went down a bit, the following day. However, just as Ysa’s fever went down, Chichi’s son, Kyle, also registered a fever of about 38 degrees Celsius.

When Chichi took her children to the doctor, the latter ordered a blood test to be done for both patients. While a normal platelet count would be about 150,000 to 450,000,  Ysa’s blood count had dropped to as low as only 35,000 when the dengue was at its worst.  Kyle’s blood count was not so bad at 180,000—still normal but toward the lower end.  The two were given treatments to boost their immune system (since there’s really no drug available to cure dengue yet).

“Thank God that my kids didn’t need a transfusion and that their condition didn’t reach a really bad stage. I know that other dengue cases are so serious that some patients have to go to the ICU or even get comatose. We’re blessed that Ysa and Kyle didn’t need transfusions. The doctor said that a milder type of dengue virus was probably responsible,” says Chichi.

Eye-opener
In the case of mommy Celenia Galvan, mother of 13-year-old Jhone Paulo, she became alarmed when his fever became persistent despite being treated with anti-fever medication.

“I was really worried about my boy because his fever refused to go away. It carried on,” she says.

When red rashes started to appear on the teener’s body, the 47-year old mother from Santa Mesa immediately rushed Jhone Paulo to the doctor, who gave the distressing diagnosis: Jhone Paulo had dengue. Luckily, he survived.

The two mothers admit that whole experience served as an eye-opener.  Celenia swore to arm her family against these deadly mosquito bites.