RESEARCH ARTICLE
Challenges in the Laboratory Diagnosis and Management of Dengue Infections
Vivek G. Bhat1, *, Preeti Chavan2, Shashank Ojha3, Pravin K. Nair4
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2015Volume: 9
First Page: 33
Last Page: 37
Publisher ID: TOMICROJ-9-33
DOI: 10.2174/1874285801509010033
Article History:
Received Date: 18/1/2015Revision Received Date: 1/6/2015
Acceptance Date: 1/06/2015
Electronic publication date: 31/7/2015
Collection year: 2015

open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
Dengue fever is considered the most important arthropod-borne viral diseases in terms of morbidity and mortality. An accurate and efficient diagnosis of dengue plays an important role in case confirmation. The virus may be isolated during the viremic phase (within day 5 of illness), from serum, plasma and peripheral blood mononuclear cells. Enzyme linked immunoassay (ELISA) has demonstrated the presence of high levels of dengue NS1 antigen and tests may be performed by enzyme-immunoassays (EIAs) or immune-chromatographic (ICT) methods. These assays are specific with respect to different flaviviruses. Conventional and real time RT PCR, nested PCR, multiplex PCR and Nucleic acid sequence based amplification (NASBA) have been described as sensitive and relatively rapid method of detecting the virus during the early viremic phase. Other tests used include assay of anti-dengue specific IgM and IgG ELISA. Currently no curative treatment in terms of anti-viral drugs is available for dengue and patients are managed with rest and aggressive supportive therapy. Management may be done at home or in the hospital depending on the severity of the illness. Hospital management includes fluid therapy, blood component transfusion and other modalities of treatments like steroids, recombinant factor VII and management of complications. Various vaccines are in trial stages and may become available in the near future.