Dengue is one of the most common arboviral infection of humans and a public health burden in India. The doctor seeing a child with 3 days of fever in whom dengue is suspected is faced with a dilemma: to send the patient home with a request that they return for follow up or to admit for observation as they approach the critical phase which usually falls between 4 to 6 days of infection. The hospitalization of a large number of dengue cases for observation inevitably places a burden on healthcare resources and has direct and indirect costs to patients and their families.
As the great majority of clinically severe complications in dengue occur between 4th and 6th day of illness, there appeared to be a window of opportunity to both make a diagnosis and try to identify children at greatest risk of severe complications. In order to develop an evidence-based algorithm to identify children…
