Dengue virus type 3, Brazil, 2002.
During the summer of 2002, Rio de Janeiro had a large epidemic of dengue fever; 288,245 cases were reported. A subset of 1,831 dengue hemorrhagic fever cases occurred. In this study, performed in the first half of 2002, samples from 1,559 patients with suspected cases of dengue infection were analyzed. From this total, 1,497 were obtained from patients with nonfatal cases, and 62 were obtained from patients with fatal cases. By the use of different methods, 831 (53.3%) cases, including 40 fatal cases, were confirmed as dengue infection. When virus identification was successful, dengue virus type 3 (DENV-3) was obtained in 99% of cases. Neurologic involvement was shown in 1 patient with encephalitis, confirmed by the detection of DENV-3 RNA in the cerebrospinal fluid. This explosive epidemic of DENV-3 was the most severe dengue epidemic reported in Brazil since dengue viruses were introduced in 1986.
Nogueira
Rita Maria Ribeiro
RM
Departamento de Virologia, Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil. rita@ioc.fiocruz.br
Schatzmayr
Hermann Gonçalves
HG
de Filippis
Ana Maria Bispo
AM
dos Santos
Flávia Barreto
FB
da Cunha
Rivaldo Venâncio
RV
Coelho
Janice Oliveira
JO
de Souza
Luiz José
LJ
Guimarães
Flávia Ramos
FR
de Araújo
Eliane Saraiva Machado
ES
De Simone
Thatiane Santos
TS
Baran
Meri
M
Teixeira
Gualberto
G
Miagostovich
Marize Pereira
MP
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001938:Brazil / Q000453:epidemiology; D002648:Child; D003715:Dengue / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000401:mortality / Q000821:virology; D003716:Dengue Virus / Q000145:classification / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D004196:Disease Outbreaks; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012367:RNA, Viral / Q000134:cerebrospinal fluid; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012621:Seasons; D012699:Serology
D012367:RNA, Viral