Study of dengue fever cases at a tertiary care hospital in Srinagar, Pauri Garhwal, Uttarakhand, North India

---

Original Article

Author Details : Avinash Sudan, Leena Firmal, K.S. Batola

Volume : 2, Issue : 2, Year : 2016

Article Page : 46-50

Suggest article by email

Get Permission

---

Abstract

Introduction: Dengue viral infection is one of the most important mosquito born diseases of the Indian sub-continent and has become a major health problem. In recent decades, the geographical distribution of the virus and the mosquito vector has expanded, the epidemic activity increased, and DHF has emerged in new geographical regions; the reasons of which are complex and not fully understood. So in our study, we tried to find out the varied presentation of dengue patients who had been admitted in a tertiary care hospital in Srinagar city of Pauri Garhwal region of Uttarakhand.
Methodology: This being a retrospective study, the patients were selected from outpatient department and indoor of HNB Base teaching hospital, a tertiary care centre in the state. We included 147 patients suffering from dengue fever in the study period from July 2015 to Dec 2015. Demographic, clinical, haematological, and biochemical laboratory data was recorded from case files in a pre-designed format.
Results: We enrolled 147 patients in the study who were diagnosed with Dengue infection as per WHO guidelines. No patient died in this study. The most common symptoms were fever (100%, 147 cases), myalgia (47.61%, 70 cases) and headache (29.93%, 44 cases).Other commonly found symptoms included rash (18.37%, 27 cases), vomiting (15.65%, 23 cases), arthralgia (10.88%, 16 cases), retro-orbital pain (9.52%, 14 cases) and abdominal pain (8.2%, 12 cases). On clinical examination, hepatomegaly was seen in 5 patients (3.4%) and splenomegaly in 2 patients (1.36%). 2pts (1.36%) had pleural effusion and 2 pts (1.36%) had ascites. Haemorrhagic manifestations in the form of upper GI bleed were seen in 2 patients (1.36%). Neurological manifestations were seen in 6 patients (4.08%) while shock was seen in 1 patient (0.68%).
Conclusion:  Dengue infection poses a huge burden to the health-care system; its spectrum ranges from mild self-limiting illness to severe fatal disease. It can have varied and multi-systemic manifestations which can go unrecognized. Clinicians should have a high index of suspicion for atypical manifestations. Community awareness, early diagnosis and management and vector control measures need to be strengthened in order to reduce the increasing number of dengue cases.

Keywords: Dengue, Dengue haemorrhagic fever, Dengue shock syndrome, Acute liver failure

How to cite : Sudan A, Firmal L, Batola K, Study of dengue fever cases at a tertiary care hospital in Srinagar, Pauri Garhwal, Uttarakhand, North India. J Prev Med Holist Health 2016;2(2):46-50

This is an Open Access (OA) journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.