 My name is Dr. Farhan Puzzle. I am an infectious disease specialist. Today we are going to discuss about dengue fever. What is dengue fever? This is a viral infection which is transmitted by a mosquito bite. What are the symptoms of dengue fever? Symptoms can be ranged from a simple high-grade fever with rashes, body ache, joint pains, pain in the eyes, pain in the stomach, some kind of nausea, vomiting and some diarrhea. This happens in most of the cases, but there are chances and possibilities that few of the patients could have severe forms of symptoms like giddiness, seizures, unconsciousness, breathing difficulty, chest pain, abdominal pain and bleeding from various sides that is from the mouth or while passing urine or while passing stools. Now these are not common in all patients, but they can occur. I want you to deal with something specific like what is the natural history of dengue infections? Usually between two to seven days is the time it's called the febrile phase, but the patient will have fever. You need to understand that patients who have fever on the fifth or sixth day could still be having fever because of dengue itself and they require only monitoring. The next phase is the a-febrile or a critical phase. That is two days, that is 48 hours after they become a-febrile is a critical phase where all the complications can occur and after that it's a convalescent phase. You might be noticing a lot of patients after having dengue, complain of aches and pains and tiredness. This is also a part of dengue fever. What are the special kind of people or population which require care especially in dengue fever? These are pregnancy, small kids, patients who have renal problems, kidney problems, liver problems, heart problems and old age. These are the kind of patients who require special care and attention because these patients can develop complications much more rapidly and are much more commonly seen in them. How do we diagnose dengue fever? This is done by a simple blood test which will tell you depending on the duration of your fever what kind of test have to be done. So depending on your fever period you will be taken given a specific blood test which will tell you the dengue fever. What are the treatments that are available? There are no anti-varyl, anti-biotic that will help in dengue fever. It's a simple infection which is treated by water drinking simple fluids and paracetamol for the fever. Only when things get complicated and in special populations do they need to get admitted in the hospital and be monitored carefully for their platelets, blood pressure and other vital parameters. Lot of queries come into when do we transfuse platelets? Platelets according to the national guidelines have to be transfused when the platelets go less than 10,000 or if there is any major bleeding from any other source. How can we prevent dengue infections? Dengue can be prevented by simply clearing the waterlogged areas in and around our houses because mosquitoes breed in stagnant water. Also to prevent mosquito bites we need to wear full clothes and also use some kind of mosquito repellents. Don't worry when you have dengue infections. Get in touch with your infections specialist and know more about it. Not all of them require admission and not all of them require platelets.