Dengue Fever Research

Dengue fever is one of the most common mosquito-borne viral diseases in the world. The global incidence of dengue has grown dramatically in recent decades.

Typical symptoms of dengue include sudden onset of fever accompanied by headache, muscle pains, rash, cough and vomiting. A proportion of clinical cases progress to a severe form of the disease, characterised by haemorrhagic manifestations. Hospitalisation may be required depending on signs of severity such as dehydration, bleeding or comorbidities. There is no specific treatment for dengue and care is mainly supportive. Rehydration and analgesia are routinely used. Early administration of supportive care reduces mortality in patients with severe dengue. However, to date, there are no accurate means to predict which patients will progress to severe forms of the disease.

The clinical course for dengue is difficult to predict mostly because the specific pathways influencing severity to disease are not understood. To address this challenge, our group pursues a comprehensive immunological and molecular approach to uncover key mechanisms involved in the development of severe dengue. Obtaining this information is of vital importance to design novel diagnostic tools as well as therapeutic approaches to treat complicated dengue.