Dengue Fever Outbreak in Remote Tribal Village of Central India

摘要

Introduction: Dengue fever is known to cause outbreaks in urban and semi urban dwellings and rarely in rural areas. The present study investigates an outbreak in remote tribal village of Chhattisgarh in 2015. Dengue virus is found in circulation of the infected patient in the first four days of fever and headache on day fifth after which dengue virus is not detectable in blood. Therefore, we analysed virus isolation and serotyping in serum of patients who presented with 1-4 days of fever. Since dengue IgM begin to appear after four days of symptoms, these samples were not included for RT-PCR.Aim: Isolation and identification of dengue virus serotype from the patients in a dengue fever outbreak in remote tribal village of central India and also to find out the correlation of dengue symptoms with serotype of dengue virus.Materials and Methods: This outbreak affected a population of 7038. Serum samples of clinically suspected patients were tested by dengue NS1 and dengue IgM capture ELISA. Dengue NS1 positive samples were serotyped by reverse transcriptase real time PCR.Results: Out of 746 samples 167 were dengue NS1 positive and 171 were Dengue IgM positive. Twenty six samples were DENV 2 positive, 77 samples were DENV 3 positive and 36 samples were positive for both DENV 2 and DENV 3. There was no correlation between serotype of dengue and severity of symptoms.Conclusion: Surveillance activities and serotyping by RT-PCR of dengue is necessary in the rainy season for prevention and control of dengue in future outbreaks.