Dengue virus (DENV) is the cause of dengue fever. It is a mosquito-borne, single positive-stranded RNAvirus of the family Flaviviridae; genus Flavivirus.[1][2] Four serotypes of the virus have been found, and a reported fifth has yet to be confirmed,[3][4][5] all of which can cause the full spectrum of disease.[1] Nevertheless, the mainstream scientific community's understanding of dengue virus may be simplistic as, rather than distinct antigenic groups, a continuum appears to exist.[6] This same study identified 47 strains of dengue virus.[7] Additionally, coinfection with and lack of rapid tests for Zika virus and chikungunya complicate matters in real-world infections.[8]
Dengue virus has increased dramatically within the last 20 years, becoming one of the worst mosquito-borne human pathogens that tropical countries have to deal with. 2013 estimates indicate that as many as 390 million infections occur each year, and many dengue infections are increasingly understood to be asymptomatic or subclinical.[9]
^Dwivedi, V. D., Tripathi, I. P., Tripathi, R. C., Bharadwaj, S., & Mishra, S. K. (2017). Genomics, proteomics and evolution of Dengue virus. Briefings in functional genomics.16(4): 217–227, https://doi.org/10.1093/bfgp/elw040