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Puerto Rico: Dengue Running Above Epidemic Threshold

 

 

# 4725

 

 

While the abstract from this week’s ICEID 2010  conference on Dengue fever in Key West, Florida has been making headlines the recent spike in Dengue infections in Puerto Rico has gone relatively unnoticed by the press.

 

First, this summary from CIDRAP on the ICEID Abstract, then the latest CDC Dengue Surveillance report for Puerto Rico.

 

 

Seroprevalence testing suggests more dengue cases in Florida


In the wake of the re-emergence of dengue virus infections in Florida, a seroprevalence study has found that even more patients have evidence of recent or presumed recent infections, according to findings presented today at ICEID.

 

Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Florida Department of Health questioned 240 patients about their illness history and collected their serum samples.

 

Forty-one percent of the study subjects had evidence of previous dengue infection on IgG enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), and 13 had evidence of either an acute, recent, or presumed recent infection. Other testing methods showed that some of the infections were caused by a strain of dengue virus, serotype 1, that is genetically similar to viruses isolated in Mexico.
Jul 13 ICEID abstracts (See Board 247)

 

A hat tip goes to RoRo on FLuTrackers for this link to the latest (week 23) Dengue surveillance report from the CDC. 

 

As you can see, the incidence of Dengue in 2010 (red line) is running well above the epidemic threshold.

 

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Traditionally, Classical Dengue - or  Dengue-like illness - was usually a non-fatal illness, producing severe flu-like symptoms (and body aches) that lasted for a week or two.

 

In the 1950s, a new form of Dengue was identified in Southeast Asia  – DHF (Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever) – that while relatively rare, if left untreated, can have a fatality rate as high as 50%.

 

The first major epidemics of Dengue – including the deadlier variant - DHF (Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever) – began after World War II.

 

Since then, the incidence and spread of the disease has been increasing dramatically. 

 

Dengue Trends

 

In the Americas, the range of the virus can be seen in the map  below.  

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Some recent blogs on Dengue include:

 

A Message Of Import

MMWR: Travel Associated Dengue Surveillance 2006-2008

A Dengue Backgrounder From Johns Hopkins

MMWR: Dengue Fever In Key West

Dengue Resurfaces In Key West

Related Post:

Dengue
Puerto Rico
surveillance

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