Abstract

ENCEPHALITIS WITH JE, DENGUE AND MALARIA IN A TERTIARY CARE HOSPITAL OF UPPER ASSAM

Mridul Malakar*, Sibarani Thinsin and Manjit Choudhury

ABSTRACT

North Lakhimpur civil Hospital is a multispecialty hospital, located at North Lakhimpur town of Upper Assam which was established by government of Assam to treat the disease patients. In this tertiary care hospital every year lots of encephalitis patients admitted from various area of the district and from some other districts too. Some of them fully recover, some of them recover with side effect and some of them expired. To control the burden of this disease source of infection must be known by the treating physician. That is why our study tried to check the vector born encephalitis by testing the encephalitis patients with Japanese Encephalitis (JE), Dengue and Malaria reported to the hospital. In our study it was found that Japanese Encephalitis Virus (JEV) was the causative agent in 24 % encephalitic affected patients, dengue virus was the causative agent in 2 % encephalitic patients and Malaria parasite (Pf) was the causative agent in 1% encephalitic patients. Again, 14% patients were found JE Equivocal by JE IgM ELISA. Another important Point was 27% patients were found negative by JE, Dengue and Malaria test. Age wised distribution showed that 46% affected patients were within 0-10 Years i.e. maximum affected patients were children. From our study it was confirmed that government disease control strategies and identification of cause of disease can minimize the disease burden.

Keywords: Encephalitis, JEV, Dengue, Malaria, Pf, IgM ELISA, Equivocal.