Abstract
Dengue virus infections have adversely impacted U.S. military operations since the Spanish–American War. The erosion of mission capabilities and lost duty days are underestimated. Appreciating the incidence and prevalence of dengue infections in U.S. military personnel is important to inform disease prevention strategies. Banked pre- and post-deployment serum samples from 1,000 U.S. military personnel with a single deployment to a dengue-endemic region were tested using a screening microneutralization assay to detect anti-dengue-virus-neutralizing antibodies. A total of 76 (7.6%) post-deployment samples were positive and 15 of the pre-deployment samples were negative. These figures represent an infection incidence of 1.5% and total of 17.6 seroconversions per 10,000 deployment months. These data represent a deploying military population with a relatively high background rate of dengue seropositivity, a low level of infection during deployment compared with background infection rates in the local populations, and the potential for worsening clinical attack rates with increased frequency of deployment. Additional studies are required to more clearly elucidate the dengue infection and disease risk in U.S. military personnel.
Highlights
Dengue virus (DENV) transmission is endemic in more than 120 countries with an estimated 100 million clinically apparent infections occurring annually,1making it the world’s most important arthropod-borne viral disease.[2]
The Defense Medical Surveillance System (DMSS), a relational database for military and medical experiences of service members, was queried for eligible subjects based on deployment history, as determined by self-reports on the Post Deployment Health Assessment (PDHA)
We characterized the risk of dengue infection to deploying service members during a first-time
Summary
Dengue virus (DENV) transmission is endemic in more than 120 countries with an estimated 100 million clinically apparent infections occurring annually,1making it the world’s most important arthropod-borne viral disease.[2]. No vaccine or specific antiviral therapeutic is available to U.S military members to prevent or treat dengue
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