In an unusual dengue symptom, a 20-year old woman in the national capital developed “ophthalmic complications, because of which she started complaining about a “drop in vision”. As per Indian Express, the typical symptom of dengue varies from cough, sore throat, rashes and joint pain. The rare case has been reported from Sir Gangaram Hospital, where the woman complained of “sudden blurring of vision in the left eye”. After the check up, doctors discovered that the vision drop was due to “inflammation of blood vessels in the retina”, caused due to the dengue fever, which she had suffered earlier.
“The patient tested positive for dengue and had the fever for the past eight days. She did not have any rashes on her body or any other systemic manifestation. However, one day she complained of a sudden blurring of vision in the left eye. When we tested, we found inflammation of blood vessels in the retina. This is a rare ocular manifestation of dengue fever,” Dr S N Jha, senior consultant, department of ophthalmology, Sir Gangaram Hospital, was quoted as saying by Indian Express. He added that in most of the cases dengue fever mostly results in “inflammation of blood vessels”, however, in this case, the retina was involved.
“In dengue, there is inflammation all over the body, including blood vessels. In this unusual case, there was inflammation of blood vessels in the retina. This leads to leakage of fluid around the area near the retina. Due to this, the function of the retina is compromised. In this case, fluid started leaking and collected near the retina, due to which her vision dropped significantly,” Dr Jha told the paper.
It is important to recognise ophthalmic complications manifested due to dengue, he pointed out.