Symptoms coupled with laboratory finding mostly clinches the diagnosis of Dengue fever. Laboratory diagnosis of dengue virus infection is established directly by detection of viral components in serum or indirectly by serology. The sensitivity of each approach depends on the duration of the patient's illness as well as when in the course of illness the patient presents for evaluation.
Detection of viral nucleic acid or viral antigen has high specificity but is more labor intensive and costly; serology has lower specificity but is more accessible and less costly. During the first week of illness, the diagnosis of dengue virus infection may be established via detection of viral nucleic acid in serum by means of reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay (typically positive during the first five days of illness) or via detection of viral antigen nonstructural protein…
