Dogma in Classifying Dengue Disease

In his recent perspective entitled Dengue: the Syndromic Basis to Pathogenesis Research, Inutility of the 2009 WHO Case Definition, Halstead expresses concern that adoption of the 2009 World Health Organization (WHO) classification scheme will compromise the “analytic clarity needed to understand mechanisms underlying dengue pathophysiology, pathogenesis, treatment, and therapeutics.”1 Leaving aside the important issue of how best to resolve the long running and convoluted debate on dengue case definitions and classification, two important misconceptions need to be addressed.

[1]  John S. Brownstein,et al.  The global distribution and burden of dengue , 2013, Nature.

[2]  S. Halstead.  Dengue: The Syndromic Basis to Pathogenesis Research. Inutility of the 2009 WHO Case Definition , 2013, The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene.

[3]  C. Kumar,et al.  Accuracy and applicability of the revised WHO classification (2009) of dengue in children seen at a tertiary healthcare facility in northern India , 2013, Infection.

[4]  Saravudh Suvannadabba,et al.  Protective efficacy of the recombinant, live-attenuated, CYD tetravalent dengue vaccine in Thai schoolchildren: a randomised, controlled phase 2b trial , 2012, The Lancet.

[5]  Marcel Wolbers,et al.  Clinical Features of Dengue in a Large Vietnamese Cohort: Intrinsically Lower Platelet Counts and Greater Risk for Bleeding in Adults than Children , 2012, PLoS neglected tropical diseases.

[6]  O. Horstick,et al.  Reviewing the development, evidence base, and application of the revised dengue case classification , 2012, Pathogens and global health.

[7]  Cameron P. Simmons,et al.  Current concepts: Dengue , 2012 .

[8]  E. Harris,et al.  Evaluation of the Traditional and Revised WHO Classifications of Dengue Disease Severity , 2011, PLoS neglected tropical diseases.

[9]  Y. Teo,et al.  Genome-wide association study identifies susceptibility loci for Dengue shock syndrome at MICB and PLCE1 , 2011, Nature Genetics.

[10]  Cameron P Simmons,et al.  The pathogenesis of dengue. , 2011, Vaccine.

[11]  T. Hien,et al.  Multicentre prospective study on dengue classification in four South‐east Asian and three Latin American countries , 2011, Tropical medicine & international health : TM & IH.

[12]  O. Horstick,et al.  Usefulness and applicability of the revised dengue case classification by disease: multi-centre study in 18 countries , 2011, BMC infectious diseases.

[13]  T. Hien,et al.  Liver Involvement Associated with Dengue Infection in Adults in Vietnam , 2010, The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene.

[14]  Budiyanto,et al.  Application of revised dengue classification criteria as a severity marker of dengue viral infection in Indonesia. , 2010, The Southeast Asian journal of tropical medicine and public health.

[15]  Alan L Rothman,et al.  Dengue hemorrhagic fever: the sensitivity and specificity of the world health organization definition for identification of severe cases of dengue in Thailand, 1994-2005. , 2010, Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

[16]  B. Wills,et al.  Systemic vascular leakage associated with dengue infections - the clinical perspective. , 2010, Current topics in microbiology and immunology.

[17]  J. Farrar,et al.  Hemostatic changes in Vietnamese children with mild dengue correlate with the severity of vascular leakage rather than bleeding. , 2009, The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene.

[18]  A. Basu,et al.  Vascular endothelium: the battlefield of dengue viruses , 2008, FEMS immunology and medical microbiology.

[19]  E. Azhar,et al.  Clinical profile and outcome of hospitalized patients during first outbreak of dengue in Makkah, Saudi Arabia. , 2008, Acta tropica.

[20]  A. Osterhaus,et al.  Dengue disease severity in Indonesian children: an evaluation of the World Health Organization classification system. , 2007, BMC infectious diseases.

[21]  A. Kroeger,et al.  Classifying dengue: a review of the difficulties in using the WHO case classification for dengue haemorrhagic fever , 2006, Tropical medicine & international health : TM & IH.

[22]  Jacqueline L Deen,et al.  The WHO dengue classification and case definitions: time for a reassessment , 2006, The Lancet.

[23]  J. Rigau-Pérez,et al.  Severe dengue: the need for new case definitions. , 2006, The Lancet. Infectious diseases.

[24]  M. Blettner,et al.  Vascular leakage in severe dengue virus infections: a potential role for the nonstructural viral protein NS1 and complement. , 2006, The Journal of infectious diseases.

[25]  Tom Solomon,et al.  Clinical diagnosis and assessment of severity of confirmed dengue infections in Vietnamese children: is the world health organization classification system helpful? , 2004, The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene.

[26]  M. Narayanan,et al.  Dengue fever epidemic in Chennai--a study of clinical profile and outcome. , 2002, Indian pediatrics.

[27]  E. Harris,et al.  Clinical, epidemiologic, and virologic features of dengue in the 1998 epidemic in Nicaragua. , 2000, The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene.

[28]  S. Kabra,et al.  Dengue haemorrhagic fever in children in the 1996 Delhi epidemic. , 1999, Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

[29]  G. Crane.  Dengue haemorrhagic fever: diagnosis, treatment, prevention and control , 1999 .

[30]  W. Gropp,et al.  Does increased aromatase activity in adipose fibroblasts cause low sexual desire in patients with HIV lipodystrophy? , 2002, Sexually transmitted infections.

[31]  D. Gubler,et al.  Clinical observations on virologically confirmed fatal dengue infections in Jakarta, Indonesia. , 1983, Bulletin of the World Health Organization.

[32]  S. Halstead.  The Alexander D. Langmuir Lecture. The pathogenesis of dengue. Molecular epidemiology in infectious disease. , 1981, American journal of epidemiology.

[33]  S. Cohen,et al.  Observations related to pathogenesis of dengue hemorrhagic fever. IV. Relation of disease severity to antibody response and virus recovered. , 1970, The Yale journal of biology and medicine.

[34]  S. Cohen,et al.  Dengue and chikungunya virus infection in man in Thailand, 1962-1964. I. Observations on hospitalized patients with hemorrhagic fever. , 1969 .

[35]  S. Halstead,et al.  Dengue and Chikungunya Virus Infection in Man in Thailand, 1962–1964 , 1969 .

[36]  Daniel J. Gould,et al.  An insular outbreak of dengue hemorrhagic fever. II. Virologic and serologic studies. , 1968, The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene.

[37]  An insular outbreak of dengue hemorrhagic fever. I. Epidemiologic observations. , 1968, The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene.

[38]  S. Cohen,et al.  Shock associated with dengue infection. I. Clinical and physiologic manifestations of dengue hemorrhagic fever in Thailand, 1964. , 1966, The Journal of pediatrics.