The Dengue virus is known to be a mosquito-borne viral infection and is a major threat to health worldwide. It is a mosquito-borne infection that causes a severe flu-like illness and is also known as break bone fever. Fifty to one hundred million people are infected each year mostly in tropical and sub-tropical climates of the world. In the U.S, cases seen affected with the Dengue virus are mostly from Americans who traveled out of the country. Infection of the dengue virus causes dengue fever. The virus weakens the circulatory system and leads to a deadly hemorrhaging.
“Dengue fever is the most prevalent arthropod-borne viral illness in humans and is caused by family related to the virus that cause yellow fever, hepatitis C, and the Japanese St. Lou serotypes of DV causes spectrum of clinical disease ranging from an acute debilitating self-syndrome (dengue hemorrhagic fever/dengue shock syndrome)” (Diamond, Roberts, Edgil, Lu, Ernst, & Harris, 2000, Modulation of Dengue Virus Infection in Human Cells by Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Interface, pg.1, para. 2).
Environmental Factors
Humans are known to be the main carriers and multipliers of the virus. Dengue fever is caused by four different types of the dengue virus. It is transmitted by the bite of an Aedes mosquito directly from one person to another. Mosquitoes are known to breed mostly in man-made containers and are found in all continents of the world except Antarctica. The Aedes mosquitoes’ characteristics are known to have peak biting periods during the early morning and just before dusk. The first case of the dengue fever was reported in Key west, Florida in 2009. By 2010, 1.6 Million cases were reported in the Americas of which 49,000 were severe dengue. Statistics had suggested that the threat is higher for Americans living along the Texas-Mexico border and other southern parts of the United States than the rest of the country. The high humidity level of the southern parts of
References: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2013, October). Transmission of the Dengue Virus. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/dengue/epidemiology/index.html Diamond, M., Roberts, T., Edgil, D., Lu, B., Ernst, J., & Harris, E. (2000, June). Modulation of Dengue Virus Infection in Human Cells by Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Interface. Journal of Virology, 74(11), 4957-4966. Retrieved from http://jvi.asm.org National Institute of Health. (2013, January). NIH- Developed Candidate Dengue Vaccine Shows Promise in Early Stage Trial.. Retrieved from http://www.niaid.nih.gov World Health Organization. (2012, November). Dengue and Severe Dengue. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/mediacenter/factsheets/fs/117en/