A study of dengue imported to Kuwait during 1997-1999

This study was carried out on sera from 210 patients in Kuwait in 1997-1999 . All of the patients were suffering from febrile illness and had recently visited dengue- (DEN) endemic areas. The sera were screened for DEN virus b y inoculation into cultures of the Aedes albopictus cell clone C6/36 (virus isolation) and by IgM capture ELISA (detection of DEN virus-specific IgM a ntibodies). In the cell cultures, DEN virus could not be isolated from any of the patients' sera. However, sera from 19 patients were positive for DEN virus-specific IgM antibodies. All these 19 sera were tested for the prese nce of DEN virus-specific RNA by reverse transcription-PCR (RT-PCR) using D EN virus types-common (consensus) primers. In addition, the type of DEN vir us was identified by using type-specific primers in a semi-nested PCR. The results showed that two of the 19 patients were infected with DEN virus typ e 2. This report of 19 patients with serological evidence of DEN infection indicates that imported DEN is a real threat to Kuwait, a country non-endem ic for DEN but with a large portion of the population vacationing in DEN-hy perendemic areas during the peak DEN season and then returning to Kuwait.