Dengue fever, once confined to the tropics, now threatens the US

The weather in Salta, just south of the Bolivian border, was warm, but Norris, a 33-year-old from Boulder, Colorado, zipped a fleece sweatshirt around her body to stop herself from shivering.She woke that night in a sweat and spent the hours alternately burning up then freezing. In the morning, her eyes were sore and her lymph nodes were swollen.

This summer, she does not expect to see significant dengue outbreaks on the U.S. mainland, but she said there is likely to be some people who travel to regions that have higher-than-usual cases and bring the virus back home.Humans are reservoirs for dengue, so in order to have widespread transmission, enough people must be infected for the mosquitoes to reliably bite someone with the virus so that they can spread it to another person.

“After you’ve had your first exposure, your risk of having dengue hemorrhagic fever or severe symptoms increases exponentially,” Von Fricken said. Dengue also becomes deadlier with each infection. There’s no specific drug to treat dengue. Instead, doctors just aim to treat the symptoms and keep the patient comfortable until the virus runs its course. That means resting and drinking a lot of fluids. Ko said people should try to take acetaminophen for pain and fever if they can, since nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs , which include ibuprofen and aspirin, can make bleeding worse if someone develops hemorrhagic dengue, in which their blood vessels are damaged and become leaky.

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