If your child is a cricket freak and actively indulges in the sport, beware of ailments known as a “Ghost syndrome”, that your child may be affected with. With the IPL season in full bloom, coupled with the summer vacation, cricket is currently the favourite pastime of children. A lot of kids are over-indulging in “gully” cricket during the holidays. Children tend to emulate their favourite cricketers, most of who resort to picking up the ball from the dusty ground, rub it on sweaty trousers, apply saliva to it and play or pass it to a fellow player.
Doctors reiterate that this unhygienic habit is a potential source of microbial infection and is causing illness, including viral fever, upper respiratory tract infections, gastroenteritis, jaundice, typhoid, TB, hepatitis among other ailments in children.
Terming the ailment as “Ghost syndrome”, (as causative factors are triggered by the ground, hands, oral secretion or saliva, skin and trousers), Dr S. Vijay Mohan, consultant general physician from Care Hospital, said, “Children suffering from fever and GE are frequenting the clinics. They may have access to a healthy diet and pure water, but tend to suffer from various microbial infections. On investigation we found that most of them have been playing cricket during the summer vacation and have the bad habit of applying saliva to the ball. The body fluids and hands are a notorious medium of transmission of communicable diseases.
Dr N. Sunitha, infectious disease consultant, Apollo Hospital, said, “This chain of infections passing from a micro-organism to an inanimate object to a person is called fomite. The ground also contains various types of worms of the protozoa group and their eggs and can cause stomach and skin ailments and giardia etc. There’s no other precaution except maintaining personal hygiene and parental advice can help.”