Dengue Virus

Dengue virus is an epidemic facing many Asian countries. Although the current topic of discussion among health professionals is a possible outbreak of avian flu among humans, the dengue virus kills hundreds every year in the same region (ONE). This epidemic is not one that faces easy fixes, in fact there is no vaccine for the dengue virus. In this paper I will discuss and explain how the dengue virus poses a great threat to the region and how it plagues the lives of thousands of people in Asia.

What is the dengue virus and how does it behave? The dengue virus is a flu-like viral disease spread by the bite of infected mosquitoes (THREE). Symptoms of this virus include nausea, severe cramping, other flu-like symptoms and quite often also leads to death. Initially, the virus begins to show itself in the host through symptoms relating to a high fever, rash, pain behind the eyes, and muscle and joint pain. The severeness of the pain associated with the joint pains has gained dengue virus the nickname of “brokenbone fever” along with several others (THREE). The dengue virus can be found in most tropical areas of the world, but mostly effects the Asian tropical areas, including Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines (THREE). Being exposed and infected with one strain, or family, of the dengue virus does not mean you are immune to it and other mutations in the future, in fact the human body does not even build anti-agents to help guard against it in the future (FIVE)

The dengue virus, although being very complex in behavior and morphology, has a very simple method of transportation. Although many deadly viruses known today are transmitted via human contact (ie. Airborne), the dengue virus moves from one host to another through mosquitoes (TWO). Knowing that mosquitoes are the method of transportation does not make the solution to the problem any easier. The particular type of mosquito carrying the virus is called the Aedes mosquito. Even though it may be a mosquito it has now become more immune to modern day mosquito control methods such as pesticides and more. Even methods to control mosquito breeding are proving to be inadequate as more and more mosquitoes carrying this deadly virus are being found (TWO). Due to the mosquitoes adaptation despite attempts to control the spread of the mosquito carriers, there is increased fear that a mutation of the virus may cause a worldwide epidemic. In 2004, there was an estimated 9500 people in Singapore alone infected with the dengue virus. This year (2005) there is over 11500 infected people.