부산대학교 도서관

Dengue fever is an important issue in public health. Since the epidemic of dengue fever occurred in Pingtung area in the past few years, we conducted a study to investigate the epidemiology in this area in 2004. From January to December 2004, a total of 178 cases of suspicious dengue fever managed at Pingtung Christian Hospital were reported to Center for Disease Control (CDC)-Taiwan. Among them, 80 cases (45%) were subsequently confirmed by laboratory examinations performed at CDC-Taiwan and were included for analysis. There were 38 males (47.5%) and 42 females (52.5%), with a mean age of 41.4±18.4 years (range, 4-82 years). The duration from the onset of fever to patient's visit to the medical station was 2.9±2.1 days (range, 0-10 days). The most common symptoms were fever (98.8%), poor appetite (60%), joint pain (60%) and general malaise (57.5%). Most patients visited the emergency department (43 cases, 53.8%), the infectious disease department (17 cases, 21.3%) and the department of general internal medicine (7 cases, 8.8%). 62 (77.5%) patients were admitted to the hospital and the average of hospital stay was 5.5 days (range, 2-12 days). 25 were confirmed by the ELISA method and 55 by RT-PCR. Type Ⅰ dengue virus was identified in 50 cases and type Ⅳ in 5 cases. Of the 79 districts in Pingtung city, 52 (65.8%) districts were involved, and four were found to have both type Ⅰ and type Ⅳ dengue viruses circulated. Because the patients usually visit the primary care physicians or the emergency department of the hospital first, primary care physicians should be alert to this disease during the epidemic and report the case to the CDC-Taiwan once suspected. Only when the system is well established the control of dengue fever can be expected, and hence the burden of public health associated with dengue fever can be exempted.