A prospective study of prevalence rate epidemiology, risk factors and clinical course of dengue fever in tertiary care hospital

Abstract

Introduction: The origin of word “dengue” is derived from the ‘Swahili phrase ka-dinga pepo’ which describes the disease is being caused by an evil spirit. The dengue virus, a member of the genus Flavivirus of the family Flaviviridae, is an arthropod –borne virus that includes four different serotypes (DEN-1, DEN-2, DEN-3 and DEN-4). Objectives: To investigate the most affected age groups. To investigate the most affected gender. To evaluate social life (occupation, smoker, alcoholic, diet) of dengue positive patients. To investigate the prevalence /incidence in a particular area/population. To observe intensity and severity of signs and symptoms of various dengue positive effected patients. To evaluate the patient’s concomitant diseases. To investigate further complications which might occur during dengue affected patients. Method: A prospective case series study was done on patients admitted in Maharaja Institute of Medical Sciences, Vizianagaram, AP, India. Results: In our study we included total of 100 patients. Out of 100 patients 54 were females and 46 were males. Number of smokers was 06 and 94 were non smokers out of 100 patients. Alcoholics were 04 and non-alcoholics were 96. Most of the patients were from rural background comprising 70% and remaining 30% who were from urban areas. A symptom of high grade fever was experienced by 68 patients and symptoms of Myalagia by 64%. Most of the patients experienced vomiting/s episode/s. out of 100 patients 55 patients had developed headache. Almost all patients have shown drop in platelet count (thrombocytopenia) as a most potential symptom. 12% of patients had hypertension and 4% of patients had diabetes as co-morbidity. 8% of patients shown re-occurrence of dengue infection.