Is dengue fever contagious?

Dengue fever is an acute fever caused by some viruses. The symptoms of this disease are fever, muscle pain, joint pain, nausea, and leukopenia. Dengue fever generally has an incubation period of 5-8 days. Once you have this disease, you must seek treatment in time. If you do not receive early treatment, it will cause a lot of harm. So is dengue fever contagious? It is important to understand this issue.

Perhaps many of us don’t know what dengue fever is, and have never heard of it. Dengue fever is actually an acute febrile disease. The patient’s life will be affected after suffering from this disease. It is best to treat it in the early stages. Let’s take a look at whether dengue fever is contagious.

Patients and asymptomatic carriers are the main sources of infection, and no healthy carriers of the virus have been found. The patient has obvious viremia from 6 to 8 hours before onset to the 6th day of the disease, which can infect the biting Aedes mosquitoes. During the epidemic, the number of mild patients was 10 times that of typical patients, and asymptomatic carriers accounted for 1/3 of the population, who may be important sources of infection. Although serological evidence of dengue virus infection was found in monkeys in jungles and mountains and some domestic animals in cities, they have not yet been identified as sources of infection.

Symptoms and signs

The incubation period is 5 to 8 days. The prodromal symptoms include rhinitis, conjunctivitis, sudden high fever, chills, headache, retro-orbital pain, myositis, severe headache, myalgia, joint pain, nausea, vomiting, fatigue, and anorexia. The first fever may reach 39 to 40°C. The symptoms continue to subside for 4 to 5 days, and high fever reappears about 1 to 3 days after the symptoms are alleviated (bimodal fever). 3 to 5 days after the onset of the disease, most patients first develop measles-like erythema on both sides of the trunk, which gradually spreads to the limbs, mostly on the flexor side of the forearm, and presents as a scarlet fever-like rash, which spreads to the face and limbs. In some cases, purpuric maculopapular rashes may be seen on the hands, feet, palms, soles, ankles and calves, accompanied by itching, which may be followed by desquamation after the rash subsides. Patients often have superficial lymphadenopathy.

Dengue virus causes hemorrhagic fever in Asian children. It manifests as small bleeding spots and ecchymosis on the skin and mucous membranes. In severe cases, there are nosebleeds, gastrointestinal tract, respiratory tract and intracranial bleeding. Leukopenia, neutrophil and thrombocytopenia, which can be recovered after the fever subsides, and prothrombin is prolonged. Some patients have proteinuria and elevated serum transaminases. Rat brain, monkey kidney, white mosquito and Aedes mosquito cell lines can be used for virus isolation and culture.

Don't ignore the dengue fever, it is now very common. Is dengue fever contagious? From the above introduction, we know that this is a very contagious disease. Patients should receive timely treatment. The most important thing is to lower the body temperature, pay attention to rest, eat more protein-containing foods, and control the spread of this disease.