Original Research Article
Year: 2016 | Month: September | Volume: 6 | Issue: 9 | Pages: 403-407
Sensitive and Specific Markers for Detection of Dengue Virus Infection from Suspected Patients in Sivagiri Taluk, Tamil Nadu
Sakkanan Ilango1, Mariappan Malarvizhi2
1Assistant Professor, Department of Zoology, 2Research Scholar in Zoology,
Ayya Nadar Janaki Ammal College (Autonomous), Sivakasi - 626 124, Tamilnadu, India.
Corresponding Author: Sakkanan Ilango
ABSTRACT
Background: Dengue viral infection is one of the most important public health problems in India. Therefore, early diagnosis of dengue infection during the febrile stage is better to understand for the adjusting appropriate management. This study is to identify the specific markers of clinical features in the acute stage of dengue infection during a major outbreak of dengue virus that is also confirmed by immunological assays. The study was performed to investigate the various dengue suspected cases during first week of June 2014 to August 2015. During this period, many suspected cases of Dengue fever (DF) were reported from rural and urban areas of Sivagiri Taluk, Tamil Nadu.
Results: A total of 269 blood samples were collected from dengue suspected cases and were tested for dengue specific immunoglobulin M (IgM) and IgG antibodies. The suspected dengue cases consist of 29 children (≤ 12 years) and 240 adults. Among the 269 suspected cases, 5 (1.86%) children and 27 (10.04%) adults were laboratory confirmed. A total of 32 cases were positive by both dengue IgM capture assay and Dengue IgG/IgM rapid test kit (n = 21). Based on the clinical features for predicting laboratory confirmed dengue infection, the sensitivities of fever, diarrhea, vomiting, rashes in skin, myalgia and petechiae are 85.18%, 88.88%, 70.58%, 84.61%, 81.25% and 73.68%, while the specificities for above features are 97.13%, 97.53%, 96.34%, 97.53%, 96.73% and 97.13%, respectively.
Conclusion: Specific and sensitive immunological assessments would be the useful predictive markers for early diagnosis of dengue infection during a large outbreak in the infection.
Key words: Dengue virus; early diagnosis; clinical features; IgM/IgG antibodies and predictive markers.