Dengue Fever Literature

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1.1 Background Dengue fever is a viral disease that was initially documented in Chinese encyclopedia of diseases and symptoms of the disease were published during the Chin Dynasty (265 to 420 AD) (Gubler 1998). It was stated as “water poison” in early literatures because of the clean water in which these flying insects bred, after the advances in modern science it was confirmed that dengue fever is a viral disease which is transmitted to humans through mosquitoes (Ligon 2006). Dengue viruses are the members of mosquito-borne pathogens of genus Flavivirus (family Flaviviridae). Phylogenetically they are related to Yellow fever (YFV), West Nile (WNV) and Japanese encephalitis (JEV), (Rico hesso, 2003). All 4 serotypes (1, 2, 3 and 4) of the virus are mainly transmitted by mosquitoes called Aedes aegypti, A. albopictus and A.polynesiensis to humans and cause a wide range of symptoms and results in mild dengue fever (DF) to severe dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) and rarely, dengue shock syndrome (DSS) that may be serious (Mackenzie et al., 2004). Global health faces serious risk from…show more content…
About 100 million cases of dengue fever occur yearly. Out of these, 500,000 cases need hospitalization, and about 25,000 cases are fatal (Gubler 1998 and Halstead 2007).The disease is emerging due to the increased rate of global growth, urbanization, and the extent spread of the vector, Aedes aegypti. Increased frequency of epidemics are due to the co-circulation of different serotypes of the virus that makes the disease as emerging problem and threat to human life. Dengue disease such as dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) is being spreading and introduced in the areas where it was not present before, more than 60,000 children, since 1958 have been infected and died due to dengue hemorrhagic fever DHF (Halsted

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