Find in Library

Dengue fever (DF), Dengue Hemorrhagic fever (DHF) and Dengue Shock syndrome have been causing significant and incremental morbidity and mortality in various parts of the world. It was characterized a viral infection in 1906. The earliest known documentation of symptoms resembling dengue fever was recorded during the Chin Dynasty (AD 265-420) in the Chinese Encyclopedia of Symptoms. The illness was associated with flying insects near water and labeled as “The water poison”.1 Dengue virus is an enveloped positive single strand 11 kilo bases long RNA virus belonging to the Flaviviridae family.2 Four serotypes, Den 1, 2, 3 and 4 are responsible for Dengue viral infection in different regions of the globe and their relative prevalence varies temporally. Clinicopathological events in Dengue viral infection are poorly understood due to its unique features as all the four serotypes behaved differently in various regions as well as chronological order in which the infection is introduced into a community. Primary infection by any one type leads to mild to moderate disease and confer short-term (approximately 6 months) immunity against all the four types and lifelong immunity to the specific infecting type. However, subsequent ‘secondary’ infection by any other type may cause mild to severe disease which may prove fatal. Several manifestations of dengue viral infection are due to immunologically mediated tissue damage causing thrombocytopenia, leucopenia, increase capillary permeability, multi-organ dysfunction etc. Infection during early pregnancy usually does not cause any damage to fetus but in later term it infects the infant.3-5