Abstract
The present study was aimed to investigate the circulation of four dengue virus (DENV) serotypes in Makkah, Western Saudi Arabia. Blood samples were collected from 25 dengue fever-suspected patients and were subjected to molecular typing for DENV-1, DENV-2, DENV-3, and DENV-4 serotypes of dengue virus, by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), using six sets of primers. Of the 25 samples, only six samples (24%) were found to be positive for dengue virus infection. The prevalence of DENV-1 was higher (50% of DENV-positive samples), as compared to DENV-2 (33.3%) and DENV-3 (16.6%) serotypes. The fourth serotype, DENV-4, was not detected in any of the DENV-positive samples. Although Makkah is considered endemic to dengue fever, we observed low prevalence of dengue virus in the city, which may be attributed to various factors. Nonetheless, the results presented herein confirm the circulation of DENV serotypes in the Western region of Saudi Arabia. To the best of our knowledge, the current study so far is the first report demonstrating the prevalence of the DENV-1 serotype in the city Makkah, Saudi Arabia.
Highlights
Dengue fever/dengue hemorrhagic fever (DF/DHF) is one of the major reemerging diseases in the past decade that has been expanding its circulation in various geographic locations around the world
Among the samples tested in this study, dengue virus (DENV)-1 serotype was the most prevalent among the six DENV-positive samples (detected in three of six samples, 50%, Figure 1(a))
It appears that DENV-3 has least circulation in the cases tested in current study, and in the other patients belonging to the different areas in Saudi Arabia [7, 8, 10, 19] and elsewhere [20]
Summary
Dengue fever/dengue hemorrhagic fever (DF/DHF) is one of the major reemerging diseases in the past decade that has been expanding its circulation in various geographic locations around the world. The virus infection is characterized by a spectrum of illnesses that ranges from mild febrile illness to the fatal hemorrhagic disease and the dengue shock syndrome (DSS) [1,2,3]. Dengue virus infection constitutes a major public health concern and is estimated to cause about 300 million cases in a year across the globe. Dengue fever/dengue hemorrhagic fever and the dengue shock syndrome are the diseases that are caused by dengue virus (DENV) that belongs to the genus Flavivirus a member of the Flaviviridae family. Dengue virus infection is an arthropod vector-borne disease that is transmitted by different species of Aedes mosquito (Ae. aegypti; Ae. albopictus; Ae. polynesiensis). Ae. aegypti is considered to be the main vector because it is in proximity to human habitation [1, 2, 4]
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