Dengue

• Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has recently confirmed that dengue’s infection geography has expanded from eight States in 2001 to across the country in the last two decades, with an 11-fold increase and repeated outbreaks.
• Dengue has now breached the country’s last bastion, Ladakh.
• It is now endemic in more than 100 countries, and according to the World Health Organization half of the world population now at risk.
• Reasons-The enhanced risk of dengue has been propelled by several factors, including climate change, urbanised environments that are temperature controlled, and increased travel.

ABOUT DENGUE

• Dengue is a mosquito-borne tropical disease caused by the dengue virus (Genus Flavivirus) transmitted by female mosquitoes, mainly of the species Aedes aegypti and to a lesser extent, Aedes albopictus.
  • These mosquitoes are also vectors of the chikungunya, yellow fever and Zika viruses.
• There are 4 distinct, but closely related, serotypes of the virus that cause dengue (DEN-1, DEN-2, DEN-3 and DEN-4).
  • Serotypes are separate groups within a species of microorganisms that all share a similar characteristic.
• Symptoms include sudden high fever, severe headaches, pain behind the eyes, severe bone, joint, and muscle pain, etc.
• There is no specific medicine to treat dengue infection.