It causes fever, severe headache, muscle pain, joint pain, eye pain, gastrointestinal upset, lack of appetite, and a rash. Following acute illness, convalescence may be prolonged for several weeks with symptoms of fatigue and depression. Much less often dengue causes mild to severe bleeding, and rarely, death. Dengue can have a serious impact on a mission within the first week of the arrival of troops in an endemic area. Other than food and waterborne illnesses, few other diseases can attack so quickly and have as wide an impact on our forces.
Diagnosis requires sophisticated laboratory testing.
Since it may mimic malaria, it can be critical to do thick and thin blood smears to rule out malaria in febrile patients who have been in endemic areas. There is no drug treatment that will cure dengue. There is no effective vaccine against dengue. Avoidance of mosquito bites is the only means of prevention. Dengue is spread by day-biting mosquitos that prefer feeding on humans.