INFORMATION ABOUT DENGUE

MUHAMMAD REHAN TAHIR MPHIL ENVIRONMENT MSC PHYSICS REHAN263@GMAIL.COM

Dengue fever a serious viral disease is caused by the bite of female mosquito has Aedes Aegypti This specie of mosquito has black and white stripes on its legs and body. Four different varieties of the dengue virus are recognized and all are transmitted by the daytime biting Aedes aegypti. Mosquitoes become infective about 2 weeks after feeding on an infected individual, and remain so for the rest of their lives. Signs and symptoms: Commonly known to occur in two forms:
1. Classic dengue fever. 2. Dengue hemorrhagic fever.

Dengue fever is infectious with the first symptoms occurring during initial four to seven days after being bitten by the infected mosquito. Classic dengue Fever is characterized by abrupt onset of fever, headache, eye-ache which worsens on eye movements, severe backache, skin rashes nausea, vomiting difficulty in respiration. The dengue rash is usually bright red in colour, occurring initially on lower limbs, the chest and in some cases spreads to most of the body. Dengue hemorrhagic fever is a severe form of dengue fever and is believed to be the result of two sequential infections with different dengue serotypes. The disease has a mild start often with symptoms of an upper respiratory infection which can be misdiagnosed as flu and later develops into a more serious, even deadly form of the disease followed by the abrupt onset of shock and bleeding into the skin and ear, epistaxis (bleeding from nose), bleeding from mouth, malena (black stools) known as the dengue shock syndrome. Dengue patients spread the infection through mosquitoes or blood products as long as they are feverish. All dengue patients undergo a progressive decrease in their blood platelet count (normal blood platelet cont is 150-400 thousand). Patients with platelet count 50 or less then 50 are high risk patients. So all dengue patients are required to get a blood test done every day to see if the platelet count is getting better.

High risk Indiviuals: children, travelers and tourists, adults residing in endemic areas.

Diagnosis is done by lab test such as Dengue serology, Dengue serology is done by 2 methods. 1. 2. Rapid Method Elisa Method

Antibodies detected by these methods are further of 2 types i.e IgG, IgM. IgG antibody if positive shows that the person has suffered previously from this infection Igm antibody titer in sera shows that the person has contacted virus for the first time. If both are present it shows that it is the 2nd exposure. Elisa method is more reliable than rapid method. Treatment: There is no vaccine that can cure dengue fever. Therefore the treatment is symptomatic. These patients are given plenty of fluids and the fever is properly controlled. Patients with decreased platelet count receive blood transfusions. Prevention: The Aedes aegyptis breeding places can be eliminated by various means such as by tightly covering water storage containers, draining rainwater regularly disposing off garbage. Inside the house insecticide sprays, coils mats and liquid electrical devices are used to control this disease causing mosquito.