Hospital based clinical surveillance for dengue haemorrhagic fever in Bandung, Indonesia 1994-1995.

In Indonesia, by law dengue haemorrhagic fever (DHF) cases must be reported within 24 h to the district health authority. The objective of this study was to evaluate the adequacy, accuracy and reporting delay of this reporting system. In four major hospitals of the city of Bandung, medical records of hospitalised DHF cases admitted between April 1994 and March 1995 were reviewed. This list of DHF cases was compared with the list of reported cases to the Bandung Municipality Health Office. During the study period, 569 DHF cases and 81 dengue shock syndrome (DSS) cases were diagnosed. Only 199 (31%) of the 650 hospitalised cases with suspected DHF/DSS were reported to the Bandung Municipality Health Office. The percentage of fatal cases was significantly lower among all hospitalised cases 11/650 (1.7%) than among reported cases 5/199 (2.5%). In only 443 of the 583 hospitalised cases (76%) in which a dengue serological test was performed, was this test positive. Of the 199 reported DHF/DSS cases 151 (76%) had a positive haemagglutination inhibition test. This study shows that the surveillance system for DHF/DSS in Bandung should be strengthened. DHF/DSS cases should be reported on the basis of a diagnosis made during hospitalisation preferably after a serological confirmation is obtained.

Clinical manifestations of dengue haemorrhagic fever in children in Bandung, Indonesia.

To describe the clinical manifestations of dengue haemorrhagic fever (DHF) all children with a clinical diagnosis of DHF admitted to the paediatric ward of the Dr. Hassan Sadikin General Hospital (Bandung, Indonesia) between April 1st 1991 and September 30th 1993 were enrolled in a prospective study. Of the 306 children with a clinical diagnosis of DHF on admission in only 128 (41.8%) the diagnosis of DHF was confirmed by HI test. Of the confirmed cases, 24 (19%) developed shock and 1 (0.7%) died. Of the 174 cases with a negative HI test, 33 (19%) developed shock and 4 (2%) died. Four of the children died of shock before an hemagglutination inhibitor (HI) test was performed. The overall case mortality rate was 2.9%. The symptoms and signs of the 128 children with serologically confirmed DHF included fever or a history of fever (100%), petechiae (29.7%), epistaxis (39.1%), other forms of bleeding (5.5%), a positive Tourniquet test (78.1%), hepatomegaly (46.9%), epigastric pain (61.7%), vomiting (55.5%), thrombocytopenia < 100,000/mm3 (3.2% on admission and 15.3% during hospitalisation). Four (3%) children developed encephalopathy and 1 child an acute liver failure. In order to decrease the mortality associated with DHF early diagnosis and adequate case management are essential.