MOLECULAR CHARACTERIZATION OF CHIKUNGUNYA AND DENGUE VIRUS AND THEIR ASSOCIATION WITH LIVER AND RENAL PROFILES

Dengue is a mosquito borne arbovirus infection endemic to most tropical and subtropical countries (1). Elevation of liver enzymes Aspartate Transaminase (AST) and Alanine Transaminase (ALT) is common in acute Dengue illness, occurring in 65-97% (2,3,4,5) of Dengue patients peaking during the convalescent period of illness (days7-10) (2,4,6). In Dengue endemic countries Dengue fever (DF) is important cause of the acute viral hepatitis (7). Dengue fever represents a severe flu like symptomatology which includes severe headache (retro-orbital), nausea, vomiting, muscle and joint pain (bone-break fever) and skin rash. According to WHO, the incidence of DF has increased 30 folds over last 50 years with approximately 50-100 million infections occurring annually in over 100 endemic countries, placing almost half of the world population at risk (1, 8).

Dengue virus comprises of four distinct serotypes of Dengue Virus DENV 1, DENV 2, DENV 3, DENV 4, belonging to genus Flavivirus, family Flaviviridae. Among them, Asian genotype of DENV 2 and DENV 3 are frequently associated with severe Dengue disease (9). The etiology of elevated aminotransferases level during Acute Dengue is unclear since, AST is expressed in heart, skeletal muscle, red blood cells, kidney, brain, and liver while ALT secreted primarily by liver (10, 11) so raised Aminotransferases are not entirely due to liver.