%0 Journal Article
%T Dengue Fever (DF) in Pakistan
%A Fridous Jahan
%J Asia Pacific Family Medicine
%D 2011
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1447-056x-10-1
%X The World health Organization (WHO) declares dengue and dengue hemorrhagic fever to be endemic in South Asia. WHO currently estimates there may be 50 million dengue infections worldwide every year. In 2007 alone, there were more than 890 000 reported cases of dengue in the Americas, of which 26 000 cases were Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever (DHF)[1]. The disease is now endemic in more than 100 countries in Africa, Americas, the Eastern Mediterranean, South-east Asia and the Western Pacific. South-east Asia and the Western Pacific are the most seriously affected.Pakistan is at high risk of being hit by large epidemics because of many over crowded cities, unsafe drinking water, inadequate sanitation, large number of refugees and low vaccination coverage. These conditions promote the spread of infectious diseases and consequently every year a large number of epidemics/outbreaks occur in different parts of the country, which result in increased morbidity and mortality.Dengue virus infection is increasingly recognized as one of the world's emerging infectious diseases. About 50-100 million cases of dengue fever and 500,000 cases of Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever (DHF), resulting in around 24,000 deaths, are reported annually[1].A pandemic of dengue began in Southeast Asia after World War II and has spread around the globe since then. In the 1980 s, DHF began a second expansion into Asia when Sri Lanka, India, and the Maldive Islands had their first major DHF epidemics.Pakistan first reported an epidemic of dengue fever in 1994.The epidemics in Sri Lanka and India were associated with multiple dengue virus serotypes, but DEN-3 was predominant and was genetically distinct from DEN-3 viruses previously isolated from infected persons in those countries. In Asian countries where DHF is endemic, the epidemics have become progressively larger in the last 15 years. In 2005, dengue is the most important mosquito-borne viral disease affecting humans[2].Dengue virus is now endemic in Pakistan,
%U http://www.apfmj.com/content/10/1/1