Dengue Fever – How To Diagnose & Prevent

Dengue fever is one of the most common type of mosquito born disease prevalent all over the world. It is caused by Aedes mosquito infected with dengue virus. Around 400 million dengue infections occur all over the world ,out of which 96 million cases result in illness.

Dengue virus is usually of 4 serotypes. The mosquito becomes infected when it bites a person with dengue virus.

Dengue Fever Symptoms:

Dengue fever usually begins 4-6 days after infection and its total duration usually lasts for 10 days, until it is secondary infected. It is also called ‘Break bone fever’ because it causes severe muscle and joint pain which makes people assume distorted body position and walking becomes difficult. Other symptom of dengue includes pain behind the eyes, fatigue, nausea & vomiting. Skin rash (Erythematous) usually develops 4-5 days after the onset of fever. Rashes of dengue fever are usually pruritic, bleeding  may occur from gums, skin and nose.

There are two type of dengue fever which generally has fulminate course. They are dengue hemorrhagic fever which present with bleeding from any part of body and malena damage to lymphatic and blood vessels which requires urgent and intensive management. Some patients of dengue may present with dengue shock syndrome which is characterized by massive bleeding, shock, feature of multi organ, dysfunction which, may ultimately leads to death.

Sometimes initial presentation of dengue may be mistaken as normal viral fever. Whenever anyone develop such symptoms describe above, should consult a doctor. Early diagnosis of dengue fever is done by detecting NSI antigen in blood which is detected initially. Antibody to dengue virus IgM usually come positive in blood after 4 days. Test for IgG indicate chronic and past infection. However person with both IgG & IgM are more prone to fulminant course.

Dengue Fever Treatment:  

Treatment of dengue fever is usually supportive. There is no role of antibiotic in case of dengue fever, unless it is secondary infected, analgesic should be avoided. Regular monitoring of platelet count is necessary. Platelet should be transfused only when blood platelet count is less than 20,000 or there is any evidence of bleeding.

Prevention from Dengue:

Most important for dengue prevention is to protect yourself from bite of infected mosquito. For this use mosquito repellants, protective clothing, avoid travel to heavily populated and residential area if possible. Window and door should be secured and use mosquito net.

One of the important aspect of dengue precaution is to get rid of places where dengue mosquitoes can breed. These include old tires, canes, cooler, flower pot, any places where rain water accumulates.