Ever since the COVID pandemic took over the world, people have been paying attention to new illnesses more than ever before.
And sure enough, several variants of the virus have appeared in the last couple of years and now Monkeypox is also threatening our health and social stability.
Unfortunately, that’s not all! According to new reports, there is a new outbreak of the so called tomato flu in India.
One paper published in the Lancet Respiratory Medicine journal says that over 82 kids between the ages of 1 and 5 have already been diagnosed with this virus in the last 30 days.
The tomato flu, also known as tomato fever was first identified in the southern Indian state Kerala but has spread to two other regions in the meantime.
Since several other viruses have spread really quickly all over the planet in the last two years, it makes sense that people are concerned and want to know more about this new possible threat.
So what is tomato flu?
According to The Lancet, tomato flu is a non life threatening viral infection.
Amesh A. Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and an infectious disease expert, explains that “This illness appears to be just a variation on hand, foot, and mouth disease—a really common childhood illness.”
As per the CDC, hand, foot, and mouth disease is caused by the coxsackievirus and is really contagious, spreading through throat and nose secretions as well as feces and fluid from blisters and scabs.
The most common symptoms are flu-like, fever, skin rashes and mouth sores.
So what causes tomato flu?
Professor and also chief of infectious disease at the University at Buffalo in New York, Thomas Russo, stressed that “It’s not entirely clear at this point.”
While not certain, it is believed to be an after effect of mosquito-borne illness Chikungunya, also known as dengue fever, but it could very well be a new variant of hand, foot, and mouth disease.
The Lancet mentions that this virus will most likely go away on its own upon infection as there is no drug specifically made to treat it.
That’s not to say patients can’t opt for over the counter fever-reducing medication to ease their discomfort.
So should we be concerned about tomato flu spreading to many other countries?
Dr. Adalja says that “Because these types of infections are usually caused by ubiquitous viruses that are highly contagious, it is not something I expect to see restricted to one geographic region. However this isn’t an infectious disease that merits worry.”
