Dengue Fever: Symptoms, Causes, and Treatments

Dengue Fever: Symptoms, Causes, and Treatments

Dengue (pronounced DENgee) fever is a painful, debilitating mosquito-borne disease characterized by dengue virus closely related to any one. These viruses are related to viruses that cause West Nile infection and yellow fever.



An estimated 400 million dengue infections occur worldwide each year, with approximately 96 million resulting from the disease. Most cases occur in tropical regions of the world, with the greatest risk being:

Indian subcontinent
Southeast Asia
South china
Taiwan
Pacific Islands
Caribbean (except Cuba and Cayman Islands)
Mexico
Africa
Central and South America (except Chile, Paraguay and Argentina)
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Most cases in the United States occur in people who contracted infection while traveling abroad. But the risk is increasing for people living along the Texas-Mexico border and in other parts of the southern United States. In 2014, dengue fever outbreaks in Hawaii were identified in 2013, along with other outbreaks in Brownsville, Texas and Key West, Fla.

Dengue fever is spread by a dengue virus-infected Aedes mosquito bite. The mosquito becomes infected when it bites a person with dengue virus in its blood. It cannot be spread directly from one person to another.

Symptoms of Dengue fever

Symptoms, which usually begin four to six days after infection and last up to 10 days, may include

Sudden high fever
severe headache
Pain behind the eyes
Severe joint and muscle pain
Fatigue
Nausea
Vomiting
Skin redness, which appears two to five days after the onset of fever
Mild bleeding (such as bleeding from the nose, bleeding from the gums, or easy sores)

Sometimes, the symptoms are mild and can be mistaken for flu or other viral infections. Younger children and those who have never had an infection before have more milk cases than older children and adults. However, serious problems can develop. These include dengue hemorrhagic fever, a rare complication of high fever, damage to lymph and blood vessels, bleeding from nose and gums, enlargement of liver and failure of circulatory system. Symptoms can lead to massive bleeding, trauma, and death. This is called dengue shock syndrome (DSS).

People with a weakened immune system, as well as people with second or subsequent dengue infection, are considered at greater risk for developing dengue hemorrhagic fever.