DENGUE FEVER;

Dengue fever is arboviral infection transmitted from infected personto non-infected one by mosquitoes Aedes Aegypti or Aedes albopectis. All four serotypes (DEN-1, DEN-2, DEN-3 & DEN-4) can cause the clinical manifestations of disease. Dengue infectioncan cause acute febrile illness, dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) and dengue shock syndrome(DSS). About 50-100 million cases of dengue fever reported annually worldwide in which 0.5million may need admission. Overall mortality of dengue fever is 3%. The diagnosis of dengueis established by classical clinical features along with specific investigations like PCR, detectionof dengue NS1 antigen or IgM or IgG antibodies in the blood of infected person. Dengue isendemic in most part of our country and can become epidemics on and off. Objectives: Tostudy the pattern and mortality of Dengue fever during epidemic and post epidemic years inSwat. Setting: This study was conducted in Medical Department of Saidu Group of TeachingHospital, Swat. Period: Aug 2013 to November, 2016. Patients and method: Patients sufferingfrom acute febrile illness with features suggestive of Dengue fever were included in the study.Clinical criteria for initial diagnosis directed the subsequent diagnostic work up. Dengue wasconfirmed in these patients by either Dengue NS1 or Ig M antibodies in their blood. Writtenconsent for participation in study was taken from all the included patients. Formal permissionwas taken from Institutional Review Board of the institution to perform this study. The clinical andlaboratory data were recorded on a proforma and analyzed using SPSS 20. Results: Among5569 patients, 3834 (68.85 %) were male and 1735 (31.15%) were female. The mean age ofthe patients was 30 years SD 15.20. The most common age group that suffered with Denguefever was the adult age group (13-30 years). Dengue Hemorrhegic Fever was diagnosed in2543 (45.6%) patients and 50 (0.89 %) had features of DSS. A total 5018 (90.1 %) patients werecompletely cured while 37 (0.66 %) patients died. The overall mortality was 0.66%. Patientswith Dengue fever presented to the hospital though out the year but more than 50% of caseswere reported in the month of September. Conclusion: Adult age group and male gender ismost commonly affected by Dengue fever. Dengue fever was endemic in Swat valley and it canbecome cyclic epidemic in post epidemic years. Dengue fever can claim so many preciouslives if proper preventive measures were not taken in future.