Autoimmune and dengue fever.

The recent publication on autoimmune features in dengue fever by Jardim et al. is very interesting.1 Dengue fever should be suspected in patients with hematological disorders and autoimmune features in endemic regions.1 Indeed, there is no doubt that autoimmunity plays important roles in the pathogenesis of dengue. Wiwanitkit showed that the immune mimicry process is the main pathological process leading to thrombocytopenia in dengue.2 However, the process is transient and normally does not persist to show overt autoimmune features. In this case, there are many features of autoimmunity, but the main question is whether these characteristics are due to dengue fever or to a previous occult disorder in the patients. It should also be noted that dengue fever and other viral infections can be a trigger factor that aggravate the overt appearance of systemic lupus erythrematosus.3