A Study of Etiological Pattern in an Epidemic of Acute Febrile Illness during Monsoon in a Tertiary Health Care Institute of Uttarakhand, India.

BACKGROUND Many parts of India are endemic for the dengue, malaria, typhoid and scrub typhus infections. The relative contribution of these illnesses in an outbreak of acute febrile illness is not known in this region. OBJECTIVE The present study was conducted to find out the etiological pattern in an epidemic of acute febrile illness in Uttarakhand during the monsoon period. The study also focuses on concurrent infections and tries to find out the mortality outcomes. MATERIALS AND METHODS A retrospective study of four months was conducted on 1141 patients who presented with fever, and were suspected to have dengue, malaria, typhoid or scrub typhus. Patients of 12-years of age or above were included in the study. Serological tests for dengue, malaria, typhoid and scrub typhus were performed. Slides for malaria parasite were examined. In case of enteric fever only culture positive cases were included in the study. RESULT Among the 1141 febrile patients dengue was detected in 812(71.2 %), malaria in 146(12.8%), typhoid in 92(8.1%) and scrub typhus in 69(6.0%) cases. Mixed infection was noted in 22(1.9%). CONCLUSION Maximum (71.2 %) cases of fever were caused by dengue but significant number (32.3%) of patients suffered from malaria typhoid and scrub typhus. Many (1.9%) suffered from concurrent and multiple infections.