Dengue Investigation Research in Bangladesh: Insights From a Scoping Review

A more accurate assessment of the disease's incidence and fatality rate over the previous years could help with future outbreak detection and containment. Therefore, this scoping review was conducted to compile the results of research on dengue investigation in Bangladesh in terms of knowledge, attitudes, and practices; risk factors; clinical presentations; and stereotypes of dengue.

The final analysis included 27 studies that satisfied the inclusion criteria. The PRISMA 2020 guidelines served as the basis for data extraction. All included articles were retrieved from PubMed, BanglaJOL, Google Scholar, Embase, Web Sciences, Cochrane Library, and other databases up to October, 2024. The quality of included studies in terms of relevance, reliability, validity, and applicability was also evaluated.

The present study recorded a moderate understanding of dengue infection among slum dwellers and people in rural areas due to a lack of knowledge about it. Insufficient practices regarding dengue fever were also found among them. However, the differences in perception regarding dengue infection were observed in different parts of Dhaka city. Additionally, between 2017 and 2022, different dengue serotypes were the most common at various times. The potential risk factors included monsoon sessions (July to September), static water, scrapyards, and indoor plants; urbanization; population density; being outside in the morning and evening; sleeping during the day; and so forth. Along with the common symptoms of dengue, hematological abnormalities such as thrombocytopenia and leukopenia, as well as elevated levels of ALT and AST, were observed in Bangladeshi dengue patients.

Knowledge gap, moderate understanding, insufficient practices regarding dengue infection among slum dwellers and rural people, and varieties in dengue serotypes are the main obstacles to control the dengue outbreak. Therefore, it is essential to undertake several preventive measures to reduce the dengue infection and also understand the dengue serotypes.