Dengue and scrub typhus sero-prevalence in Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh, India Kumar N1, Jaryal S2, Jaryal SC3,*, Sood A3 1Viral Research and Diagnostic Laboratory, Dr. Rajendra Prasad Govt. Medical College, Kangra at Tanda, Himachal Pradesh, India 2Department of OBG, Dr. Rajendra Prasad Govt. Medical College, Kangra at Tanda, Himachal Pradesh, India 3Department of Microbiology, Dr. Rajendra Prasad Govt. Medical College, Kangra at Tanda, Himachal Pradesh, India *Corresponding author E-mail id: drscjaryal@gmail.com
Onilne Published on 8 March, 2024. Abstract With the increasing health awareness among people and increased diagnostic capacity in India, the trends of positivity for acute febrile illness need to be evaluated with keeping in mind certain parameters. This is a retrospective study for the sero-prevalence of scrub typhus and dengue cases for the year of 2022 at tertiary care hospital laboratory. Blood samples were collected and total of 1648 samples were tested for scrub typhus and 2235 samples were tested for dengue by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) in the Department of Microbiology, Dr. Rajendra Prasad Govt. Medical College Kangra at Tanda, Himachal Pradesh. Sero-positivity of scrub typhus was 17.47% and for dengue it was 3.98%. Age group of 20-40 years old was most commonly infected in both cases. Seasonal variations in positives were seen and maximum positive cases were observed in the month of September for scrub typhus and October for dengue. Further, females were more infected with scrub typhus and reverse was observed in dengue. Co-infections of scrub typhus with leptospirosis were most prominent (67.44%) as compared to scrub typhus with dengue and dengue with leptospirosis. Scrub typhus occurrence is more common in hilly area of Himachal Pradesh as compared to dengue. Introduction of certain advanced molecular test or assays need to be applied than conventional ELISA to differentiate the co-infection cases properly so that effective treatment strategy can be applied. Top Keywords Acute febrile illness, Sero-prevalence, Co-infections, ELISA. Top |