Dengue is transmitted by the bite of a mosquito infected with one of the four dengue virus serotypes. It is a febrile illness that affects infants, young children and adults with symptoms appearing 3-14 days after the infective bite.
Dengue is not transmitted directly from person-to-person and symptoms range from mild fever, to incapacitating high fever, with severe headache, pain behind the eyes, muscle and joint pain, and rash. There is no vaccine or any specific medicine to treat dengue. People who have dengue fever should rest, drink plenty of fluids and reduce the fever using paracetamol or see a doctor.
Severe dengue (also known as dengue hemorrhagic fever) is characterized by fever, abdominal pain, persistent vomiting, bleeding and breathing difficulty and is a potentially lethal complication, affecting mainly children. Early clinical diagnosis a careful clinical management by trained physicians and nurses increase survival of patients.
History
The first record of a case of probable dengue fever is in a Chinese medical encyclopedia from the which referred to a "water poison" associated with flying insects.The primary vector, A. aegypti, spread out of Africa in the 15th to 19th centuries due in part to increased globalization secondary to the. There have been descriptions of epidemics in the 17th century, but the most plausible early reports of dengue epidemics are from 1779 and 1780, when an epidemic swept across Asia, Africa and North America. From that time until 1940, epidemics were infrequent.
In 1906, transmission by the Aedes mosquitoes was confirmed, and in 1907 dengue was the second disease (after yellow fever) that was shown to be caused by a virus. Further investigations by John Burton Cleland and Joseph Franklin Siler completed the basic understanding of dengue transmission.
The marked spread of dengue during and after the Second World War has been attributed to ecologic disruption. The same trends also led to the spread of different serotypes of the disease to new areas, and to the emergence of dengue hemorrhagic fever. This severe form of the disease was first reported in the Philippines in 1953; by the 1970s, it had become a major cause of child mortality and had emerged in the Pacific and the Americas.Dengue hemorrhagic fever and dengue shock syndrome were first noted in Central and South America in 1981, as DENV-2 was contracted by people who had previously been infected with DENV-1 several years earlier.
Dengue Fever
Dengue (pronounved DENgee) fever is a painful, debilitating mosquito-borne disease caused by any one of four closely related dengue viruses. These viruses are related to the viruses that cause West Nile infection and yellow fever.
An estimated 390 dengue infections occur worldwide each year, with about 96 million resulting in illness. Most cases occur in tropical areas of the world, with the greatest risk occurring in:
- The Indian subcontinent
- Southeast Asia
- Southern China
- Taiwan
- The Pacific Islands
- The Caribbean (except Cuba and the Cayman Islands)
- Mexico
- Africa
- Central and South America(except Chile, Paraguay and Argentina)
Most cases in the United States occur in people who contracted the infection while traveling abroad. But the risk is increasing for people living along the Texas-Mexico border and in other parts of the southern United Stated. In 2009, an outbreak of dengue fever was identified in Key West, Fla.
Dengue fever is transmitted by the bite of an Aedes mosquito infected with a dengue virus. The mosquito becomes infected when it bites a person with dengue virus in their blood. It can't be spread directly from one person to another person.
SYMPTOMS OF DENGUE FEVER
Symptoms, which usually begin four to six days after infection and last for up to 10 days, may include
- Sudden, high fever
- Severe headaches
- Pain behind the eyes
- Severe joint and muscle pain
- Fatigue
- Nausea
- Vomiting
- Skin rash, which appears two to five days after the onset of fever
- Mild bleeding (such a nose bleed, bleeding gums, or easy bruising)
Sometimes, symptoms are mild and can be mistaken for those of the flu or another viral infection. Younger children and people who have had infection before tend to have milder cases than older children and adults. However, serious problems can delevop. These include dengue hemorrhagic fever, a rare complication characterized by high fever, damage to lymph and blood vessels, bleeding from the nose and gums, enlargement of the liver, and failure of the circulatory system. The systems may progress to massive bleeding, shock, and death. This is called dengue shock syndrome(DSS).
People with weakened immune systems as well as those with a second or subsequent dengue infection are believed to be at greater risk for developing dengue hemmorrhagic fever.
PREVENTION
There are no approved vaccines for the dengue virus. Prevention thus depends on control of and protection from the bites of the mosquito that transmits it. The World Health Organization recommends as integrated Vector Control program consisting of five elements.
- Advocacy, social mobilization and legislation to ensure that public health bodies and communicates are strengthened;
- Collaboration between the health and other sectors (public and private)
- An integrated approach to disease control to maximize use of resources
- Evidence-based decision making to ensure any interventions are targeted appropriately
- Capacity-building to ensure an adequate response to the local situation.
The primary method of controlling A. aegypti is by eliminating its habitats. This is done by getting rid by of open sources of water, or if this is not possible, by adding insecticides or biological control agents to these areas. Generalized spraying with organophosphate or pyrethroid insecticides, while sometimes done, is not thought to be affective. Reducing open collections of water through environmental modification is the preferred method of control, given the concerns of negative health effected from insecticides and greater logistical difficulties with control agents. people can prevent mosquito bites by wearing clothing that fully covers the skin, using mosquito netting while resting, and/or the application of insect repellent (DEET being the most effective). However, these methods appear not to be sufficiently effective, as the frequency of outbreaks appears to be increasing in some areas, probably due to urbanization increasing the habitat of A. aegypti. The range of the disease appears to be expanding possibly due to climate change.
ANTI-DENGUE DAY
International Anti-Dengue Day is observed every year on June 15. The idea was first agreed upon in 2010 with the first even held in Jakarta, Indonesia in 2011. Further events were held in 2012 Yangon, Myanmar and in 2013 in Vietnam. Goals are to increase public awareness about dengue, mobilize resources for its prevention and control and, to demostrate the Asian regions commitment in tackling the disease.
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