Comparative analysis of immunological and genomic outcomes of dengue virus outbreak in Pakistan

Abstract

The mortality and morbidity due to dengue fever is increasing worldwide at a frightful rate. Emergence and re-emergence of dengue fever in previous epidemics has been documented globally, including Pakistan. We conducted a comprehensive study and compared the immunological and genomic status of dengue outbreak in Pakistan through ELISA and PCR. In this study 720 samples were collected from different diagnostic centre’s/laboratories of Pakistan for ELISA and PCR tests. Out of 703 dengue positive samples, 93.5% were anti-dengue IgM positive, 71.5% were anti-dengue IgG positive and 81.3% were anti-dengue NS1 positive. Among these seropositive samples, 39.66%, 40.15% and 36.88% were PCR positives, respectively. This immunological and genomic study reveals that there were more seropositive patients than RNA positive ones. Serotype-2 remained the main causative serotype of the outbreak of dengue viral infection, started in the commencement of year 2013 and continues to infect Pakistani population till now.