Last week, my son had very high fever for three consecutive days and on the fourth day, the fever went down. Rashes began to appear, and big red patches covered his body. I was so scared and so worried that we didn't waste any time and brought him to the doctor to get his blood examined. The doctor suspected that he might have had Dengue, a virus caused by mosquitoes and is fatal when not treated early, or Measles,an infection of the respiratory system which is caused by a virus. Dengue and Measles have the same symptoms, the doctor said, so he could only determine after a thorough blood examination. I didn’t know what to think that time and I never felt so nervous in my life. My baby was in danger. When the doctor started pinching my son’s finger with a pen-like needle to get the blood sample, my baby was so brave that he didn’t even cry or show some pain. It made me somehow relieved to see that he was still strong despite of the illness.
The result came after half an hour and the doctor announced that my baby had Roseola Infantum, common names of which are three-day fever, baby measles or “Tigdas Hangin” in Tagalog. This is different from the common Measles/Rubeola or “Tigdas" which constitutes fever, cough, red eyes, runny nose, vomiting and shortness of breath. Roseola Infantum strikes infants ageing from 2 years old below. The doctor gave antibiotics to be taken for a week and also an anti-allergy/antihistamine for the rashes.
When I got home, I immediately made a research about this illness because I never heard of it till my child had one. I want to know more about it so I can monitor my child’s well-being. I found out that Roseola Infantum is caused by two human herpesvirus, the HHV-6 and HHV-7, which sometimes collectively referred to Roseolovirus. Symptoms include high fever in three consecutive days and rashes after the fever goes down. I am grateful that my child did not experience febrile convulsion like other babies due to very high fever (39–40 °C). But knowing that the virus stays in the body, may be reactivated and appear in a different form of disease, scares me. I hope it would just be chicken pox and nothing very serious. The bad thing about this Roseola Infantum is that it's hard to prevent it. It just strikes. So I think mothers should always be careful and aware of what their child may catch. Don’t take simple fever for granted because ignoring might lead to something dangerous and fatal.
