MUMBAI: The dengue virus, which killed 12 Mumbaikars last year, can, in rare cases, cause blindness. Three Mumbaikars are a living testimony of the mosquito-borne viruss ability to affect vision, said doctors from a city eye hospital. A 25-year-old woman and a 55-year-old man, who dont want to identified, have suffered permanent visual loss due to dengue, while 20-year-old Vishal Nawale has acquired partial vision in one eye after developing worst complications. The three cases were reported from Aditya Jyot Hospital in Wadala. Sporadic cases from other parts of the country such as Punjab, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have, however, been reported in medical journals in the past few years. The third patient, Vishal Nawale, a 20-year-old science student from Acharya College in Chembur, had the worst complications including cataract and retinal detachment but has acquired partial vision in one eye so far. It is a miracle that Vishal can see, said Dr Radhika Krishnan from the eye hospital. Vishal, who studies BSc (IT), had high fever only on October 23. I didnt think much about it, but four days later I need to be hospitalized in a nursing home in Sion after vomiting blood, said Vishal. On October 29, blood started dripping from his left eye and he could see no more. He was first transferred to a public hospital where his dengue was brought under control, and then to Aditya Jyot hospital for his eye care. Dr Chinmay Nakwa, the retina eye surgeon who operated on both of Vishals eyes, said that the boy had suffered a retinal detachment in his left eye. He had cataract that seemed to have developed in a short while and a lot of pus, he said. The fact that Vishal had normal vision before the dengue infection points to the fact that its the virus that wreaked havoc in his eyes, said the doctor. His vision in both the eyes will improve in the coming months, said Dr Nakwa. Dr Nakwa, in fact, referred the three patients to his former teacher, Dr Jyotirmay Biswas, who heads the ocular inflammation and ocular pathology in Chennai-based Sankara Netralaya, to establish the cause of their blindness. Dr Biswas said that eye-related complications occur in up to 50% of the patients who get dengue. The eyes involvement is high, but mainly in the later stages of the infection, said Dr Biswas, adding that its gratifying that a patient has got his vision back. Dengue wreaked havoc in the city in the September-December period, affecting thousands of Mumbaikars and resulting in 12 deaths, according to the civic health officials (see box). The eyes involvement in dengue infection is still a new and rare occurrence, said experts. Dr T P Lahane , dean of the state-government-run JJ Group of hospitals and a renowned eye surgeon, said two patients had come to him in 2014 with loss of vision after dengue. The virus had affected their optic nerves. While a patient from Kolhapur had suffered bilateral blindness, another from Mumbai had lost vision in only one eye, he said. Dr Om Srivastava, who heads the infectious diseases department of Jaslok Hospital in Pedder Road, said eye complications due to dengue are rare but not unheard of. Its possible that the patient had an underlying dysfunction or immune system-related problems. We must also check if these patients were given platelet transfusion that resulted in bleeding complications, he added
Posted on: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 10:08:44 +0000
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