Incidence of Dengue during 2012 & 2013 as experienced by a Tertiary Care Hospital in Delhi

The first clinically recognized Dengue epidemics occurred almost simultaneously in Asia, Africa, and North America in the 1780s. Over 2.5 billion people, over 40% of the world's population are now at risk from dengue. WHO currently estimates there may be 50-100 million dengue infections worldwide every year.1 The epidemiology of dengue fever in the Indian subcontinent has been very complex and has substantially changed over almost the past six decades in terms of prevalent strains, geographical locations affected and severity of the disease. The first reported case of dengue in India was in 1946.2 Thereafter, for the next 18 years, there was no significant dengue activity reported anywhere in the country. After that, an epidemic of dengue fever was reported in 1963-1964 on the Eastern Coast of India, which subsequently spread northwards and reached Delhi in 1967 and Kanpur in 1968.3 Simultaneously it also involved the southern part of the country and gradually the whole country was involved with wide spread epidemics followed by endemic/ hyper-endemic prevalence of all the four serotypes of DV. The incidence of dengue fever (DF) and dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) has increased thirtyfold globally over the last few decades.