Dengue fever is a dis­ease caused by a fam­i­ly of virus­es that are trans­mit­ted by mos­qui­toes. It is an acute ill­ness of sud­den on­set that usu­al­ly fol­lows a be­nign course with symp­toms such as headache, fever, ex­haus­tion, se­vere mus­cle and joint pain, swollen glands (lym­phadenopa­thy), and rash. The pres­ence of fever, rash, and headache is par­tic­u­lar­ly char­ac­ter­is­tic of dengue. Oth­er signs of dengue fever in­clude bleed­ing gums, se­vere pain be­hind the eyes, and red palms and soles. Dengue strikes peo­ple with low lev­els of im­mu­ni­ty. Be­cause it is caused by one of four serotypes of virus, it is pos­si­ble to get dengue fever mul­ti­ple times. How­ev­er, an at­tack of dengue pro­duces im­mu­ni­ty for a life­time to that par­tic­u­lar serotype to which the pa­tient was ex­posed.

Dengue goes by oth­er names, in­clud­ing break­bone or dandy fever. Vic­tims of dengue of­ten have con­tor­tions due to the in­tense joint and mus­cle pain, hence the name break­bone fever. Slaves in the West In­dies who con­tract­ed dengue, were said to have dandy fever be­cause of their pos­tures and gait.

Dengue haem­or­rhag­ic fever is a more se­vere form of the vi­ral ill­ness. Man­i­fes­ta­tions i nclude headache, fever, rash, and ev­i­dence of haem­or­rhage in the body. Pe­techi­ae (small red or pur­ple blis­ters un­der the skin), bleed­ing in the nose or gums, black stools, or easy bruis­ing are all pos­si­ble signs of haem­or­rhage. This form of dengue fever can be life-threat­en­ing and can progress to the most se­vere form of the ill­ness, dengue shock syn­drome.

What ar­eas are at high risk for con­tract­ing dengue fever?

Dengue is preva­lent through­out the trop­ics and sub­trop­ics. Out­breaks have oc­curred re­cent­ly in the Caribbean, in­clud­ing Puer­to Ri­co, the US Vir­gin Is­lands, Cu­ba, and Cen­tral Amer­i­ca. Cas­es have al­so been im­port­ed via tourists re­turn­ing from ar­eas with wide­spread dengue, in­clud­ing Tahi­ti, Sin­ga­pore, the South Pa­cif­ic, South­east Asia, the West In­dies, In­dia, and the Mid­dle East (sim­i­lar in dis­tri­b­u­tion to the ar­eas of the world that har­bour malar­ia and yel­low fever). Dengue fever is com­mon, and sta­tis­tics show it may be in­creas­ing in South­east Asia. Thai­land, Viet­nam, Sin­ga­pore, and Malaysia have all re­port­ed an in­crease in cas­es. Near­ly 40 per cent of the world's pop­u­la­tion lives in an area en­dem­ic with dengue.

How is dengue fever con­tract­ed?

The virus is con­tract­ed from the bite of a striped Aedes ae­gyp­ti mos­qui­to that has pre­vi­ous­ly bit­ten an in­fect­ed per­son. The mos­qui­to flour­ish­es dur­ing rainy sea­sons, but can breed in wa­ter-filled flower pots, plas­tic bags, and cans year-round. One mos­qui­to bite can in­flict the dis­ease. The virus is not con­ta­gious and can­not be spread di­rect­ly from per­son to per­son. There must be a per­son-to-mos­qui­to-to-an­oth­er-per­son path­way.

What are dengue fever symp­toms and signs?

Af­ter be­ing bit­ten by a mos­qui­to car­ry­ing the virus, the in­cu­ba­tion pe­ri­od ranges from three to 15 days be­fore the signs and symp­toms of dengue ap­pear. Dengue starts with chills, headache, pain up­on mov­ing the eyes, and low back­ache. Painful aching in the legs and joints oc­curs dur­ing the first hours of ill­ness. The tem­per­a­ture ris­es quick­ly as high as 104 F (40 C), with rel­a­tive low heart rate (brady­car­dia) and low blood pres­sure (hy­poten­sion). The eyes be­come red­dened.

A flush­ing or pale pink rash comes over the face and then dis­ap­pears. The glands (lymph nodes) in the neck and groin are of­ten swollen. Fever and oth­er signs of dengue last for two to four days, fol­lowed by a rapid drop in body tem­per­a­ture (de­fer­ves­cence) with pro­fuse sweat­ing. This pre­cedes a pe­ri­od with nor­mal tem­per­a­ture and a sense of well-be­ing that lasts about a day. A sec­ond rapid rise in tem­per­a­ture fol­lows. A char­ac­ter­is­tic rash ap­pears along with the fever, and spreads from the ex­trem­i­ties to cov­er the en­tire body ex­cept the face. The palms and soles may be bright red and swollen.

What is the treat­ment for dengue fever?

Be­cause dengue fever is caused by a virus, there is no spe­cif­ic med­i­cine or an­tibi­ot­ic to treat it. For typ­i­cal dengue, the treat­ment is pure­ly con­cerned with re­lief of the symp­toms (symp­to­matic). Rest and flu­id in­take for ad­e­quate hy­dra­tion is im­por­tant. As­pirin and non­s­teroidal an­ti-in­flam­ma­to­ry drugs should on­ly be tak­en un­der a doc­tor's su­per­vi­sion be­cause of the pos­si­bil­i­ty of wors­en­ing haem­or­rhag­ic com­pli­ca­tions. Ac­eta­minophen (Tylenol) and codeine may be giv­en for se­vere headache and for the joint and mus­cle pain (myal­gia). There is cur­rent­ly no vac­cine avail­able for dengue fever.

If you sus­pect that you may have con­tract­ed the dis­ease, seek med­ical help im­me­di­ate­ly. (Med­i­cineNet.com)