Dengue fever is an endemic disease in some districts of Tamil Nadu and State Public Health Department is tracking the dengue scenario carefully. We did secondary data analysis of dengue fever (DF) cases that occurred between 2004 and 2011 in Saidapet Health Unit District (HUD) in Kancheepuram district of Tamil Nadu.
Methods
A case of dengue was defined as having acute fever of 2–7 days duration with ≥2 symptoms of DF and confirmed by demonstration of dengue specific IgM antibodies using data collected between 2004 and 2011. We did descriptive analysis by place and person and calculated incidence of DF in various age groups, by gender and blocks of HUD in 2011 and analyzed incidence trends between 2004 and 2011.
Results
In 2011, 144 DF cases were reported and incidence of DF was 7/100,000 population. The incidence rates of DF in the age group 0 to 4 and 5 to 14 years were 19/100,000 and 14/100,000 and among females and males were 7/100,000 and 6/100,000 respectively. The incidence of DF in urban and rural blocks were 8/100,000 and 6/100,000 respectively. Total 89 cases (62%) were reported from private sector in 2011. Line graph of monthly trend of dengue from 2004 to 2011 showed that following a steady increase in DF cases from July, the peak was reached in October followed by decrease thereafter. Nearly 81%–100% of the cases occurred during the months of July to December in the above-mentioned period.
Conclusions
The Pediatric age group was most affected. Blocks with both urban and rural populations were most affected than primarily rural blocks. Almost all the cases occurred between July and December which is the monsoon season in Tamil Nadu.
