Thousands of people with heat wave syndromes have been admitted in the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research (ICDDR) and other major health facilities in
Dhaka.
Doctors said yesterday that despite their preparedness to treat people with diarrhoeal syndromes, dehydration or fever due to hot weather in March and April, the hospital is seeing large turn-up due to protracted hot weather
conditions.
“Since the start of March, we (ICDDRB) alone so far admitted more than 19,000 people, most of them being children,” hospital director Dr Azharul Islam Khan told newsmen.
The state-run facility for children Shishu Hospital in Dhaka also reported high rate of admission in the past several weeks because of the heat wave exposing minor children to severe health risks in
particular.
“Parents are taking their small children with problems like high fever, cough and diarrhoea as the hot weather made them sick,” hospital director Dr Manzoor Hussain said.
In villages, quick change of temperature is making
children sick.
“The parents and adults should be careful about this situation,” assistant surgeon of Kadamtola Union health complex in Pirojpur district Dr Sakil Sarwar said.
Eminent pediatric Dr M R Khan said children are very sensitive to this hot and humid weather as “they get dehydrated quickly and germs multiply in their bodies easily during heat waves”.
“Babies and children have relatively low body weight, as compared to adults that make them more vulnerable to the fluid loss or dehydration that occurs when more fluid is lost from the body compared to the volume they consume … this causes an imbalance of minerals in their bodies,” Khan said.
He said excessive weather like heat wave also generally exposes people of different ages to viral infections causing a lot of irritation, running nose, fever, breathing problems with cough filling the breathing passage.
They called upon people and particularly children to drink plenty of water, lemonade, green coconut water for keeping fluid balance in the body as meteorological department warned that the current heat wave might continue for next several days despite slight fall of mercury.
According to a Met Office bulletin, northwestern and western regions were exposed to more heat wave as they recorded the highest 38.3 degree in Rajshahi.