The first confirmed outbreak of dengue fever in Pakistan was in 1994, but a sudden rise in cases and the annual epidemic trend first occurred in Karachi in November 2005. Since 2010, Pakistan has been experiencing an epidemic of dengue fever that has caused 16580 confirmed cases and 257 deaths in Lahore and nearly 5000 cases and 60 deaths reported from the rest of the country. The three provinces facing the epidemic are Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Sindh.
(WHO, 2013)
The major factors responsible for the dramatic resurgence and emergence of epidemic dengue and Dengue hemorrhagic fever have been the …show more content…
This genus also includes the yellow fever virus, West Nile virus, Tick-borne Encephalitis Virus and other viruses which may cause encephalitis. The size of flaviviruses is 40–50 mm and spherical shape with a lipid envelope. The genome of flavivirus has approximately 11,000 bases and consists of seven nonstructural and three structural proteins. Infection with one serotype provides lifelong protection to that virus serotype but does not provide cross protective immunity to the other serotypes. Thus, a person is expected to be infected four times with dengue virus during their lifetime. The first dengue infection mostly causes minor disease but secondary infections can cause severe diseases such as dengue hemorrhagic fever or dengue shock syndrome. (Gubler,