title: Twelve years of dengue surveillance in Belgian travellers and significant increases in the number of cases in 2010 and 2013.
abstract: During 12 years of surveillance in Belgium, dengue virus (DENV) infection was diagnosed in 676 of 7771 (8.7%) returning travellers by the use of ELISA, RT-PCR, and/or antigen detection. Men and women were equally infected. The mean age of the patients was 36.78 years (range, 3-77 years). Most of the infections occurred after a stay in Asia (55.9%), followed by the Americas (31.8%), Africa (7.2%), Oceania (1.0%), and Europe (0.4%). The number of patients coming from Africa increased as of 2009, to reach a proportion of 17% in 2011. The most prevalent serotype was DENV-1, followed by DENV-2, DENV-3, and DENV-4. Two remarkable increases in dengue incidence were noticed in 2010 and 2013.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Sciences, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Verschueren
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Sciences, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Cnops
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Sciences, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium. Electronic address: mvesbroeck@itg.be.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: van Esbroeck
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001530:Belgium / Q000453:epidemiology; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003715:Dengue / Q000453:epidemiology*; D003716:Dengue Virus / Q000145:classification / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; D062665:Epidemiological Monitoring; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D065288:Serogroup; D014195:Travel; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Dengue virus; epidemiology; import; serotypes; surveillance; travel medicine