Yellow fever is a viral disease of typically short duration. In most cases, symptoms include fever, chills, loss of appetite, nausea, muscle pains—particularly in the back—and headaches. Symptoms typically improve within five days. In about 15% of people, within a day of improving the fever comes back, abdominal pain occurs, and liver damage begins causing yellow skin. If this occurs, the risk of bleeding and kidney problems is increased.
Dengue fever is a mosquito-borne disease caused by dengue virus, prevalent in tropical and subtropical areas. It is frequently asymptomatic; if symptoms appear they typically begin 3 to 14 days after infection. These may include a high fever, headache, vomiting, muscle and joint pains, and a characteristic skin itching and skin rash. Recovery generally takes two to seven days. In a small proportion of cases, the disease develops into severe dengue with bleeding, low levels of blood platelets, blood plasma leakage, and dangerously low blood pressure.
Chikungunya is an infection caused by the Alphavirus chikungunya (CHIKV). The disease was first identified in 1952 in Tanzania and named based on the Kimakonde words for "to become contorted".
Arbovirus is an informal name for any virus that is transmitted by arthropod vectors. The term arbovirus is a portmanteau word. Tibovirus is sometimes used to more specifically describe viruses transmitted by ticks, a superorder within the arthropods. Arboviruses can affect both animals and plants. In humans, symptoms of arbovirus infection generally occur 3–15 days after exposure to the virus and last three or four days. The most common clinical features of infection are fever, headache, and malaise, but encephalitis and viral hemorrhagic fever may also occur.
Dengue virus (DENV) is the cause of dengue fever. It is a mosquito-borne, single positive-stranded RNA virus of the family Flaviviridae; genus Flavivirus. Four serotypes of the virus have been found, and a reported fifth has yet to be confirmed, all of which can cause the full spectrum of disease. Nevertheless, the mainstream scientific community's understanding of dengue virus may be simplistic as, rather than distinct antigenic groups, a continuum appears to exist. This same study identified 47 strains of dengue virus. Additionally, coinfection with and lack of rapid tests for Zika virus and chikungunya complicate matters in real-world infections.
Oropouche fever is a tropical viral infection which can infect humans. It is transmitted by biting midges and mosquitoes, from a natural reservoir which includes sloths, non-human primates, and birds. The disease is named after the region where it was first discovered and isolated in 1955, by the Oropouche River in Trinidad and Tobago. Oropouche fever is caused by the Oropouche virus (OROV), of the Bunyavirales order of viruses.
The 2006 dengue outbreak in Pakistan was at the time the worst on record. There were 1931 lab-confirmed cases, and 41 confirmed deaths, according to the World Health Organization Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean. Other sources report a death toll of 52. Most of the cases were from the east, center and north of Karachi, the capital city of Sindh.
Mosquito-borne diseases or mosquito-borne illnesses are diseases caused by bacteria, viruses or parasites transmitted by mosquitoes. Nearly 700 million people contract mosquito-borne illnesses each year, resulting in more than a million deaths.
Bangladesh is one of the most populous countries in the world, as well as having one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Consequently, Bangladesh faces challenges and opportunities in regards to public health. A remarkable metamorphosis has unfolded in Bangladesh, encompassing the demographic, health, and nutritional dimensions of its populace.
The 2009 Bolivian dengue fever epidemic was an epidemic of dengue fever which struck Bolivia in early 2009, escalating into a national emergency by February. The BBC described it as the worst outbreak of dengue fever in the country's history. At least 18 people died and 31,000 were infected by the mosquito-transmitted arbovirus.
Zika virus is a member of the virus family Flaviviridae. It is spread by daytime-active Aedes mosquitoes, such as A. aegypti and A. albopictus. Its name comes from the Ziika Forest of Uganda, where the virus was first isolated in 1947. Zika virus shares a genus with the dengue, yellow fever, Japanese encephalitis, and West Nile viruses. Since the 1950s, it has been known to occur within a narrow equatorial belt from Africa to Asia. From 2007 to 2016, the virus spread eastward, across the Pacific Ocean to the Americas, leading to the 2015–2016 Zika virus epidemic.
As of 2010, dengue fever is believed to infect 50 to 100 million people worldwide a year with 1/2 million life-threatening infections. It dramatically increased in frequency between 1960 and 2010, by 30 fold. This increase is believed to be due to a combination of urbanization, population growth, increased international travel, and global warming. The geographical distribution is around the equator with 70% of the total 2.5 billion people living in endemic areas from Asia and the Pacific. Many of the infected people during outbreaks are not virally tested, therefore their infections may also be due to chikungunya, a coinfection of both, or even other similar viruses.
Dengue fever is an important infectious disease in Pakistan with increasingly frequent epidemics. Despite the efforts of the Government of Pakistan, especially in Punjab, the high cost of prevention has limited the ability of Pakistan to control epidemics. In Pakistan, in the summer of 2011, more than 300 people died of Dengue fever. The prevalence of the disease was over 14,000. The outbreaks occurred mostly in the Lahore area, Punjab, Pakistan.
An epidemic of Zika fever, caused by Zika virus, began in Brazil and affected other countries in the Americas from April 2015 to November 2016. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the end of the epidemic in November 2016, but noted that the virus still represents "a highly significant and long term problem". It is estimated that 1.5 million people were infected by Zika virus in Brazil, with over 3,500 cases of infant microcephaly reported between October 2015 and January 2016. The epidemic also affected other parts of South and North America, as well as several islands in the Pacific.
The 2019–2020 dengue fever epidemic was an epidemic of the infectious disease dengue fever in several countries of Southeast Asia, including the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Thailand, Singapore, and Laos. The spread of the disease was exacerbated by falling vaccination levels in certain areas, and by a growing population of mosquitoes, which are the primary carriers of the disease, and which are able to reproduce in larger numbers where humans have littered the environment with plastic containers, which provide an ideal breeding ground for mosquitoes. Affected countries have sought to control the epidemic through increased vaccination efforts, and through efforts to control the mosquito population.
Global climate change has increased the occurrence of some infectious diseases. Infectious diseases whose transmission is impacted by climate change include, for example, vector-borne diseases like dengue fever, malaria, tick-borne diseases, leishmaniasis, zika fever, chikungunya and Ebola. One mechanism contributing to increased disease transmission is that climate change is altering the geographic range and seasonality of the insects that can carry the diseases. Scientists stated a clear observation in 2022: "The occurrence of climate-related food-borne and waterborne diseases has increased ."
The dengue pandemic in Sri Lanka is part of the tropical disease dengue fever pandemic. Dengue fever is caused by Dengue virus, first recorded in the 1960s. It is not a native disease in this island. Present-day dengue has become a major public health problem. Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus are both mosquito species native to Sri Lanka. However, the disease did not emerge until the early 1960s. Dengue was first serologically confirmed in the country in 1962. A Chikungunya outbreak followed in 1965. In the early 1970s two type of dengue dominated in Sri Lanka: DENV-1 type1 and DENV-2 type 2. A total of 51 cases and 15 deaths were reported in 1965–1968. From 1989 onward, dengue fever has become endemic in Sri Lanka.
In the 2020 dengue outbreak in Singapore, a record-breaking number of dengue fever cases was reported in Singapore. This was part of the wider 2019–2020 dengue fever epidemic which also affected several neighbouring countries in Southeast Asia.
In Bangladesh's ongoing 2023 dengue epidemic season, the country has been witnessing the deadliest outbreak of dengue fever ever since the first outbreak in Bangladesh in 2000. As of 31 December 2023, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) has reported 321,179 hospitalizations and 1,705 deaths due to the Aedes mosquito-borne tropical disease in the 2023 outbreak year. Like previous years, the outbreak started in Summer (April–May), spread and surged nationwide in the monsoons (July–August). On 3 August, the number of deaths surpassed previous years; and on 21 August, the tally of hospitalization surpassed the previous highest record of the 2019 outbreak. Dhaka is the worst-hit area and the epicentre of the outbreak, with more than half of the cases being reported in the megacity. On 25 July, hospitalizations were reported in all districts; and the tally of hospitalizations outside Dhaka city surpassed the figure of the capital on 14 August.
West Nile Fever (WNF) is a mosquito-borne viral infection caused by the West Nile virus (WNV), a member of the Flaviviridae family. The virus primarily incubates in a bird-mosquito transmission cycle, with humans and other mammals serving as incidental hosts.
