Over the years, dengue fever has become a significant infectious disease in different parts of the world. Medical and public health services have been unable to deal with infection as there is no vaccine available for the prevention of this infection. With dengue, effective treatments are not available due to which severe symptoms may develop. To deal with this challenge, a sensitive and specific technique is required for its early diagnosis along with the knowledge of dengue serotype to increase the specificity of diagnosis and treatment. This study was designed to check the usefulness of immunological and nucleic acid-based molecular determination of dengue virus. The study recommends polymerase chain reaction as a suitable method for the rapid detection of dengue virus as it was found more sensitive than other utilized techniques, including antibodies detection. Nucleic acid analysis may also help to define the common serotypes/genotypes of dengue virus circulating in any region.
Keywords: ELISA; PCR; antidengue IgM-IgG; dengue virus; epidemic.