Abstract

Dengue is a human arbovirus disease transmitted by the female mosquito of the genus Aedes, mainly Aedes aegypti and Ae. albopictus. Dengue, the most frequent arthropod-borne viral disease, is prevalent in tropical and subtropical regions. Two major clinical forms of dengue illness involve the mild form of dengue fever and severe form mostly characterized by plasma leakage with or without haemorrhage. Two-fifths of the world population (about 2.5 billion people) is at risk of dengue infection. The prevalence of this disease has grown dramatically in the recent decades. Between 50 and 100 million people are infected each year worldwide and more than 500,000 are hospitalized. The average annual incidence was multiplied by thirty in the last fifty years. Incidence of dengue haemorrhagic fever (DHF) is increasing in many tropical regions inducing 20,000 deaths per year, mostly among children under 15 years. Dengue is endemic in all surrounding countries with the four serotypes circulating in the region within a period of ten years. Countries or territories with the highest number of reported dengue cases were Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Martinique, Trinidad and Tobago and French Guiana. Population movement is an important factor in the virus dissemination. It contributes to carry new virus strains, but it also participates to introduce nonimmune subjects in an endemic area.

Description