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Dengue fever erupted in Bangladesh, where cases of mosquito-borne disease have increased relative to past epidemic levels in the country. The disease infected more than 1,000 people during the last epidemic, which the health authorities described as worse. According to the Asian press service The Diplomat, patients in panic have overcrowded hospitals and staff are struggling to accommodate them.
Didarul Alam, the son of his 7-year-old son was diagnosed with dengue, told the diplomat that he had spent hours looking for a hospital for his child.
Mr. Alam was fired from three hospitals while he had searched for more than six hours and had finally found a space at the Medical College and Dhaka Hospital (DMCH) in Bangladesh.
Hospitals are crowded with dengue patients, which means that Mr. Alam's son will not be the only child to be fired.
ATM Nazrul Islam, deputy director of the Dhaka Central Hospital, said the epidemic had caused a panic pushing unaffected people to seek hospital badistance.
He said, "Dengue cases are not the only ones that are alarming.
"A lot of people come to our hospital with regular fever but suspect they have dengue fever."
Lutful Ehsan Fatmi, head of the Department of Child Health at Holy Family Hospital in Dhaka, told The Diplomat that his staff needed to create new hospital services to combat the influx of patients.
He said: "Finding no other option, we had to open a new section just to treat new dengue patients. It's an epidemic.
"A large number of people simultaneously infected with the same disease meet the definition of epidemic".
According to the Bangladeshi authorities, this is the worst case of the disease since records began almost 20 years ago.
Ayesha Akhter, deputy director of the New Delhi Health Services Branch, told CNN that the government is working to ensure that public and private hospitals are equipped to fight the epidemic.
She said: "Since we started recording dengue cases, that is since 2000, it is the worst ever dengue fever outbreak in Bangladesh.
"We are ensuring that all public and private hospitals have all the resources they need to cope with this epidemic.
"We have opened a special section at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital for dengue patients."
What are the symptoms of dengue?
Dengue fever is a mosquito-borne infection that causes flu-like symptoms but in rare cases can be fatal.
According to the NHS, the symptoms include:
– high temperature (fever)
– Severe headaches
– Pain behind the eyes
– Muscle and joint pains
– feel or be sick
– Generalized red rash
– Loss of appetite
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