Alaa Al haeli
King Saud bin Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia
Title: The Epidemiology of Dengue fever in Saudi Arabia: A Systematic Review
Biography
Biography: Alaa Al haeli
Abstract
Abstract Dengue fever (DF) is the most serious mosquito-borne viral disease worldwide. It is an acute febrile illness caused by AedesAegypti mosquito bite. It is endemic in some cities of Saudi Arabia such as Jeddah and Makkah. A computer-based literature search was conducted using relevant keywords to retrieve studies conducted in Saudi Arabia pertaining to DF. Forty-five articles were identified initially. After screening for exclusion and retrieving full texts, a total of ten articles were used for this review. Four studies were cross-sectional and three found a sero-prevalence ranging from 31.7% to 56.9% either among clinically suspected cases or among patients visiting hospital for other reason. Evidence extracted from risk factors and distribution studies showed that young males are commonly affected. Fever, vomiting, thrombocytopenia and leucopoenia were the common features of the three studies related to clinical presentation of DF. One cross-sectional study about educational program of DF showed a positive family history of DF, having literate mothers, and students’ age ≥17 were the predictors of high knowledge score. However, paucity of population-based studies limits generalisability of such evidence. Future studies in Saudi Arabia should focus upon extending DF on other cities in the Kingdom and more population based epidemiological studies are needed for estimating the true burden and incidence of dengue in Saudi population, as currently there are few epidemiological studies about dengue and are only limited to sero-prevalence among clinically suspected cases and among hospital based patients.