New dengue lineage in Bhopal since 2014: ICMR
Bhopal: A new dengue lineage has been detected in mosquitoes and in human blood in Bhopal, reports an Indian Council of Medical Council (ICMR) study. It is the first observed emergence of the non-Indian lineage in Bhopal.
ICMR-funded report calls for ‘surveillance and risk assessment in this strategically important part of the country to decipher its outbreak and severe disease-causing potential’. The study also highlights the urgent need for surveillance and clinical characterisation of dengue fever. “Case severity and presentation has to be confirmed from hospitals for the new lineage,” an author of the report told TOI. When contacted, the health department and NVBDCP representative did not comment.
Evidence of circulation of a new lineage of serotype 2, was established after molecular surveillance of dengue virus in field collected Aedes mosquitoes between October 2020 to September 2022 in Bhopal.
The ICMR study included scientists from Bhopal-based National Institute for Research in Environmental Health (NIREH) and State Virology Laboratory, Gandhi Medical College (GMC).
Other experts were from Maharaja Ranjit Singh College of Professional Sciences of Indore and Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences of Lucknow. The study has been published in the renowned Frontiers Journal. The study gains importance as it is a molecular surveillance and notes the new lineage emerged during 2014.
When the state capital observed a dengue outbreak in 2014 and 2016, Aedes mosquitoes were collected from 29 localities and positive samples were sequenced, isolates belonged to DENV serotype 2 and distinctly clustered with the non-Indian lineage (cosmopolitan genotype 4a), which was not recorded from the study area earlier.
Dengue infection is caused by four antigenically different serotypes: DENV-1, DENV-2, DENV-3, and DENV-4 and the disease manifests itself in a range of ways, from asymptomatic infection and mild febrile illness (dengue fever) to more severe forms including dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) and dengue shock syndrome (DSS), report further noted.
Source – ETHealth World
