A study of complications in dengue fever among paediatric patients

Abstract

The first major epidemics of severe and fatal form of disease, dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF), occurred in Southeast Asia as a direct result of this changing ecology. The dramatic global geographic expansion during the last 25 years of 20th century, epidemic DF/DHF occurred, facilitated by unplanned urbanization in tropical developing countries, modern transportation, lack of effective mosquito control and globalization. During 21st Century, epidemic DF/DHF is one of the most important infectious disease affecting tropical urban areas. It has been estimated that 50 100 million of dengue infections, 5,00,000 cases of DHF were hospitalized and 20,000 25,000 deaths occurred mainly in children. Detailed history of patients with dengue and NS1 positive or IgM positive serological findings were enrolled into the study after obtaining parental consent. The presenting signs and symptoms that were observed among the cases who meet the inclusion criteria are: fever, headache, retro orbital pain, myalgia, arthralgia, appearance of rashes, any bleeding manifestation (epistaxis, melena, hematemesis), decreased urinary output, breathlessness and yellowish discoloration of eyes. About 73.1% of the cases without complications were diagnosed as DHF grade I, 26.9% as grade II and none as grade III in this study. The patients with complications had noted that 7.4% were diagnosed as grade I, 88.9% as grade II and 3.7% as grade III in this study at the time of admission.