The CDC is warning clinicians and public health authorities of rising dengue infections in the U.S.
In a June 25 advisory, the agency recommended healthcare providers maintain a high suspicion of the mosquito-borne viral infection among patients with a fever and who have recently traveled to areas where the infection is known to spread frequently. Dengue, also known as break-bone fever, spreads from infected mosquitoes to people and can cause severe disease in rare cases.
Clinicians should be aware of the warning signs of progression to severe disease — which include abdominal pain, persistent vomiting and clinical fluid accumulation — and order FDA-approved dengue tests and educate patients on mosquito bite prevention, according to the alert.
So far this year, there have been more than 9.7 million cases globally, twice as many in all of 2023. In the U.S., there have been 2,241 cases since January, just under half of which were reported in Puerto Rico, where a public health emergency has been declared over the high number of cases.
Symptoms typically appear within a week after infection and include fever, nausea, pain behind the eyes, and bone pain, although only one in four cases are symptomatic. Among those who do develop symptomatic disease, about 1 in 20 will become severely ill. Since there is no approved antiviral medication for dengue, treatment is focused on managing patients' pain.
Mosquitoes that carry the virus traditionally live in tropical climates, though new environments have become habitable for the mosquitoes due to climate change, according to the World Health Organization.