A study on viral haemorrhagic fever due to dengue, chikungunya and Crimean Congo haemorrhagic fever virus among patients attending tertiary care hospital in North East India

Abstract

PurposeThe present study was undertaken with the objective to study the common etiology of Viral Haemorrhagic Fever (VHF) among patients attending tertiary health care centre in NE India and also to study the clinico-demographic profile of such patients. The agents of VHF included in the study were dengue, chikungunya and Crimean Congo haemorrhagic fever (CCHF) virus. The inclusion of CCHF was based on evidence of seroprevalence in livestock (bovine, sheep and goat) in various North Eastern states. Materials and methodsSerum samples were collected from 51 suspected VHF patients. MAC-ELISA was done to detect dengue and chikungunya specific IgM antibody. The samples were also tested by real-time RT-PCR for detection of dengue, chikungunya and CCHF specific nucleic acid. The laboratory and clinico-demographic profile of these patients were noted in detail. ResultsSerum samples of 16 of 51 suspected cases were confirmed to be suffering from VHF. Among these confirmed cases, 12 were diagnosed with dengue haemorrhagic fever, one was diagnosed with chikungunya and three were diagnosed with dengue-chikungunya co-infection. Based on severity, DHF was further classified into- DHF I- (4,26.6%), DHF II (6,40%), DHF III (3,20%) and DHF IV (2,13.3%). There was no CCHFV infection detected in our study. Retro-orbital pain (P ​= ​0.02) and haematocrit level (P ​= ​0.03) were found to be statistically significant. ConclusionsThis study reiterates the fact that CCHF virus infection is still probably absent in human population of NE India and haemorrhagic symptoms, though rare maybe one of the atypical manifestations of chikungunya infection.