Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 24, 2025

A Murine Model of Dengue Virus-induced Acute Viral Encephalitis-like Disease
Published on: April 28, 2019
Epidemiology of dengue in SAARC territory: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Dhan Bahadur Shrestha1, Pravash Budhathoki2, Bipana Gurung3
1Department of Internal Medicine, Mount Sinai Hospital, Chicago, IL, USA.
Background:
Dengue is one of the common arboviral infections and is a public health problem in South East Asia. The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to evaluate the prevalence and distribution of dengue in SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) countries.
Methods:
The PubMed, PubMed Central, Embase and Scopus databases were searched for relevant studies. Statistical analysis on data extracted from the selected studied was conducted using the Comprehensive Meta-Analysis Software (CMA) version 3 software package. Proportions were used to estimate the outcome with a 95% confidence interval (CI).
Results:
Across all studies, among cases of suspected dengue, 30.7% were confirmed dengue cases (proportion: 0.307, 95% CI: 0.277-0.339). The seroprevalence of dengue immunoglobulin (Ig)G, IgM or both (IgM and IgG) antibodies and dengue NS1 antigen was 34.6, 34.2, 29.0 and 24.1%, respectively. Among the different strains of dengue, dengue virus (DENV) strains DENV-1, DENV-2, DENV-3 and DENV-4 accounted for 21.8, 41.2, 14.7 and 6.3% of cases, respectively. The prevalence of dengue fever, dengue hemorrhagic fever and dengue shock syndrome was 80.5, 18.2 and 1.5%, respectively. Fever was a commonly reported symptom, and thrombocytopenia was present in 44.7% of cases. Mortality was reported in 1.9% of dengue cases.
Conclusions:
Dengue is a common health problem in South East Asia with high seroprevalence. DENV-2 was found to be the most common strain causing infection, and most dengue cases were dengue fever. In addition, thrombocytopenia was reported in almost half of the dengue cases.
Related Concept Videos
Statistical Methods for Analyzing Epidemiological Data
Principles of Disease Surveillance
Bias in Epidemiological Studies
Prevalence and Incidence
Prevalence indicates the proportion of individuals in a population who have a specific disease or health...
Introduction to Epidemiology
Study Designs in Epidemiology
Observational studies are those where the researcher does not intervene but rather observes natural variations. They include cross-sectional, cohort, and...

