On 07 Jun, 2025, Seniors Today hosted their weekly Health Live Webinar with a Senior Internal Medicine Specialist, Dr Paritosh Baghel who spoke on and answered questions about cold and cough, given the rains.
He is presently working with S L Raheja Hospital, Mahim– A Fortis Associate. He did his MBBS from Grant Medical College, Mumbai and has done his MD in Internal Medicine from GS Medical KEM. He has his expertise in blood pressure, diabetology, general check up and infectious diseases.
The monsoon season brings with itself not just the pleasant weather but also a plethora of diseases; all of which are not as simple/ uncomplicated as the cough and cold. There are also some rather dangerous illnesses which can affect your health and can be life threatening as well.
Fever is a symptom that occurs due to either an infection, inflammation or trauma. Thus, fever is a symptom, not an illness. It is the response of the body when it goes through something.
Fever can be classified into various types based on the duration of fever, which can be
- Acute: fever that lasts less than 7 days
- Subacute: fever that lasts for 7 to 14 days
- Chronic: fever that lasts for over 14 days
The duration helps us find the causative organism. Chronic fever is seen with an infection of tuberculosis and typhoid.
Others can cause acute fever such as common cold, malaria.
Occasionally, there can also be fever that lasts for long duration but the causative organism/ infection cannot be identified, this is called fever of unknown origin.
Fever is not usually a sole symptom, it can be due to:
- Infection
- Inflammation
- Malignancy
- Drugs
- Immune mediated disorders
- Endocrine disorders
- Self induced fever
Monsoon diseases can be classified into:
- Air borne diseases
- Water borne diseases
- Vector borne diseases
- Skin infections
Common cold is common during the monsoon seasons, which is also called the flu is caused by an influenza infection. These are generally called viral flu/ fever, since most of these infections are caused by a virus and leads to respiratory symptoms.
Viral fever is generally associated with respiratory symptoms, cough, joint pain and moderate to high grade fever.
Other causes of fever during monsoon can be:
- Other organisms
- Other route of infection
Air borne diseases are caused/ transmitted through the air/ droplets containing the viruses in the cough/ sneeze droplets of an infected individual (carrier) and when you come in close contact with the carrier, you can get infected too through the droplets.
Common diseases which are spread through is route are:
- Common cold
- Influenza
- Covid
- H3N1 virus
Common cold through can infect you at any given point in time/ season, but is more prevalent during the monsoon season.
Constant sneezing, sore throat and fever are the most common symptoms of common cold.
Viral infections can cause a variety of symptoms, some of which are:
- Fever
- Sore throat
- Sneezing
- Fatigue and malaise
- Generalised body weakness
These are not specific symptoms to just viral infection, but are commonly associated with a viral infection.
A patient with viral fever is advised to take preventive measures and home remedies.
However, with individuals that are at a risk of developing severe disease, or worsening of symptoms they need to be treated with antiviral medications.
These include, individuals at the extremes of ages, seniors suffering from co morbid conditions, individuals in an immunocompromised state.
Antibiotics play no role in a viral infection. Avoid taking antibiotics- they play no role but can develop an antibiotic resistance.
Water borne diseases which are caused during monsoons include:
- Typhoid
- Cholera
- Hepatitis A and E
- Leptospirosis
These are transmitted through the feco- oral route.
Typhoid is a vaccine preventable disease.
