Viral Fever Tops list of Communicable Diseases in 2018

08-01-2020   |   Posted By: Mona Singh   |   2084 View(s)

Acute respiratory infection, often triggered by pollution, poor hygiene and bacterial infections, is the top communicable disease accounting for nearly 70% of all communicable diseases in India in 2018 with pneumonia being the biggest killer infection, according to the National Health Profile, 2019.

The NHP 2019 recorded 41,996,260 cases and 3,740 deaths from acute respiratory infections across India in 2018. In 2017, acute respiratory infections accounted for 69 % of the total cases of communicable diseases and caused 23% of such deaths. There were as many as 40,810,524 cases and 3164 deaths from such infections. The report released by health ministry shows acute respiratory infections — also known as ‘viral fever’ — contributes most to the burden of communicable disease, followed by acute diarrhoeal disease at 21.8% and typhoid at 3.8%.

Doctors say that though acute respiratory infections are primarily caused by viral and bacterial infections, lack of knowledge about hygiene and increasing pollution can really aggravate and sometimes even trigger the disease, especially in children. When pneumonia accounted for 30.7 % of mortality from communicable diseases, acute respiratory infections were the second largest cause of deaths(27.2 %) followed by acute diarrhoeal diseases (10.5%)