Molecular Epidemiology of Dengue Virus Infection in Children

DENGUE AND DENGUE VIRUS INFECTION IN CHILDREN Dengue is the most common arboviral (arthropod transmitted) disease in the world. In the last 50 years, dengue incidence has increased 30-fold with increasing geographic expansion to new countries and, in the present decade, from urban to rural settings. Some 2.5 billion people living in tropical and subtropical regions are at risk of dengue infection, which equates to about twofifths of humanity. There is an estimated 50-100 million infections occurring globally every year, with 500,000 cases requiring hospitalization and causing 24,000 deaths. Furthermore, the number of people living in tropical and subtropical regions is set to double by the end of the century. Children have historically borne the brunt of the disease burden and severe dengue has been a leading cause of admission to hospital and death of children in several southeast Asian countries thus making dengue an unqualified global threat to public health. Therefore, the present book emphasizes the molecular pathophysiology of dengue virus infection in children.