International Journal of Advances in Medicine | November-December 2017 | Vol 4 | Issue 6 Page 1605 International Journal of Advances in Medicine Bhardwaj LM et al. Int J Adv Med. 2017 Dec;4(6):1605-1612 http://www.ijmedicine.com pISSN 2349-3925 | eISSN 2349-3933 Original Research Article Clinico-epidemiological study of dengue cases in a tertiary care hospital, Guwahati, Assam, India Lalit Mohan Bhardwaj, Swapnav Borthakur*, P. C. Bhattacharyya INTRODUCTION Dengue viruses (DV) belong to the family Flaviviridae, and there are four serotypes of the virus referred to as DV-1, DV-2, DV-3, and DV-4. DV is a positive-stranded encapsulated RNA virus and is composed of three structural protein genes, which encode the nucleocapsid or core (C) protein, a membrane-associated (M) protein, an enveloped (E) glycoprotein, and seven non-structural (NS) proteins. It is transmitted mainly by Aedes aegypti mosquito and also by Ae. albopictus. All four serotypes can cause the full spectrum of disease from a subclinical infection to a mild self-limiting disease, the dengue fever (DF); a severe disease that may be fatal, the dengue haemorrhagic fever/dengue shock syndrome (DHF/DSS). Dengue is the most common and widespread arboviral infection in the world today. It is an increasingly prevalent tropical arbovirus infection with significant morbidity and mortality. 1 Dengue infection has been known to be endemic in India for over two centuries as a benign and self-limited disease. In India, the first epidemic of clinical dengue-like illness was recorded in Madras in 1780 and first virologically proved epidemic of DF occurred in Calcutta and Eastern ABSTRACT Background: Dengue fever (DF) is a common mosquito borne disease caused by dengue virus and is transmitted by Aedes mosquito. It is one of the major public health problems in India. A large-scale outbreak of dengue fever occurred in 2016 involving several districts of Assam. Here we report our experience with Dengue cases. The present study was aimed to assess clinical and epidemiological aspects of dengue cases presenting in down town hospital, Guwahati, Assam. Methods: A record based retrospective study conducted in our centre. Total 880 fever cases, fulfilling WHO criteria for dengue suspicion were included in our study. Required data from the entire laboratory confirmed cases from 1 st January to 31 st December 2016 were collected from MRD (medical record department) and analysed. Epidemiological data were compared with previous year’s available data from 1 st January to 31 st December 2015. Results: The number of dengue cases in 2016 clearly outnumbered the dengue cases in past years. Most of the cases were in the age group 20-50 years with a male preponderance. The outbreak occurred during the months of August- November indicating increased vector transmission in the monsoon and post monsoon periods. Average days of hospital stay were 6 days. Conclusions: Measures can be taken both at personal and government level to reduce morbidity and mortality from dengue particularly during the monsoon period. Keywords: Dengue fever, Dengue cases in Guwahati, Dengue outbreak 2016 Department of Medicine, Down Town Hospital, Guwahati, Assam, India Received: 21 August 2017 Accepted: 19 September 2017 *Correspondence: Dr. Swapnav Borthakur, E-mail: dr.lalitmohan7@gmail.com Copyright: © the author(s), publisher and licensee Medip Academy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18203/2349-3933.ijam20175175