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Source: http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2013/04/dengue-cases-three-times-higher-.html
Dengue Cases Three Times Higher Than Thought
by on 7 April 2013, 1:00 PM | 1 Comment
The redder the zone you live in on the map at right, the greater your risk for contracting dengue, a painful viral disease that new research finds is far more prevalent than previously thought.
There is no vaccine, nor are there drugs to treat dengue, which is spread by mosquitoes and known colloquially as "breakbone fever" for the aches it produces. Patients with severe dengue recover on their own with medical support, but complications occasionally cause death. There are four types of the virus. Infection makes you immune to that particular dengue type for life, but infection with a second type increases the likelihood of severe disease.
"Dengue is one of the few infectious diseases increasing its global spread and the number of cases annually," says Jeremy Farrar, a clinician and infectious disease specialist at the University of Oxford Clinical Research Unit in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. For public health interventions to be effective, "it's crucial we understand where the disease is today and have an understanding of where it may be tomorrow." But knowledge of dengue was based on incomplete reporting, a lack of data on mild cases, and crude approximations that produced "back-of-the-envelope estimates," Farrar says...
Dengue Cases Three Times Higher Than Thought
by on 7 April 2013, 1:00 PM | 1 Comment
The redder the zone you live in on the map at right, the greater your risk for contracting dengue, a painful viral disease that new research finds is far more prevalent than previously thought.
There is no vaccine, nor are there drugs to treat dengue, which is spread by mosquitoes and known colloquially as "breakbone fever" for the aches it produces. Patients with severe dengue recover on their own with medical support, but complications occasionally cause death. There are four types of the virus. Infection makes you immune to that particular dengue type for life, but infection with a second type increases the likelihood of severe disease.
"Dengue is one of the few infectious diseases increasing its global spread and the number of cases annually," says Jeremy Farrar, a clinician and infectious disease specialist at the University of Oxford Clinical Research Unit in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. For public health interventions to be effective, "it's crucial we understand where the disease is today and have an understanding of where it may be tomorrow." But knowledge of dengue was based on incomplete reporting, a lack of data on mild cases, and crude approximations that produced "back-of-the-envelope estimates," Farrar says...