Scandinavian Journal of Infectious Diseases, 2014; 46: 478
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Death due to dengue fever
Scand J Infect Dis Downloaded from informahealthcare.com by University of Louisville on 01/04/15 For personal use only.
BEUY JOOB1 & VIROJ WIWANITKIT2,3,4 From the 1Santitation 1 Medical Academic Center, Bangkok, Thailand, 2Hainan Medical University, China, 3Faculty of Medicine, University of Nis, Serbia, and 4Joseph Ayobabalola University, Nigeria
To the Editor, Sir, the recent report on death due to dengue fever is very interesting [1]. Assir et al. noted that “dengue shock syndrome and expanded dengue syndrome were the most common causes of death” [1]. In fact, dengue shock syndrome is the most serious form of dengue and is usually the common cause of death of the patients [2]. There are some reports attempting to identify the risk of fatality in dengue. Thein et al. reported that co-morbidities are important risks [3]. Branco et al. noted that the presentation of overt bleeding was the main presentation associated with fatality [4]. However, the exact contributing factor that leads to death in dengue patients is usually improper fluid replacement therapy [2]. To improve case fatality rates, Nguyen et al. proposed “intravenous fluid replacement with special care to avoid fluid overload” [5].
Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper. References [1] Assir MZ, Ahmad HI, Masood MA, Kamran U, Yusuf NW. Deaths due to dengue fever at a tertiary care hospital in Lahore, Pakistan. Scand J Infect Dis 2014 Feb 4. [Epub ahead of print] [2] Wiwanitkit V. Dengue fever: diagnosis and treatment. Expert Rev Anti Infect Ther 2010;8:841–5. [3] Thein TL, Leo YS, Fisher DA, Low JG, Oh HM, Gan VC, et al. Risk factors for fatality among confirmed adult dengue inpatients in Singapore: a matched case–control study. PLoS One 2013;8:e81060. [4] Branco MD, Luna EJ, Braga LL Júnior, Oliveira RV, Rios LT, Silva MD, et al. Risk factors associated with death in Brazilian children with severe dengue: a case–control study. Clinics (Sao Paulo) 2014;69:55–60. [5] Nguyen TH, Nguyen TL, Lei HY, Lin YS, Le BL, Huang KJ, et al. Volume replacement in infants with dengue hemorrhagic fever/dengue shock syndrome. Am J Trop Med Hyg 2006;74:684–91.
Correspondence: V. Wiwanitkit, Sanitation 1 Medical Academic Center, Bangkok, Thailand. E-mail:
[email protected] (Received 5 February 2014 ; accepted 10 February 2014 ) ISSN 0036-5548 print/ISSN 1651-1980 online © 2014 Informa Healthcare DOI: 10.3109/00365548.2014.898335