First Confirmed Dengue-1 Fever Cases Reported from Cameroon

Abstract

In Asia and Latin America the epidemiology of classical dengue fever (DF) and dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) is well established. Epidemics have been monitored and the spread of the prevalent dengue virus strains reported in a wealth of publications. In contrast reports concerning DF in Africa are scarce and there is little data available concerning incidence and geographical distribution. Dengue fever has mainly been documented by retrospective antibody analysis of serum samples in returnees or single DF cases from countries like Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Comoros, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Nigeria, Somalia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Tanzania. 1,2 Rarely, epidemics of dengue-like syndromes, as they occurred in Djibouti and Somalia, result in the investigation of the causative agent and identification of the dengue virus strain. 3,4 There has been one probable DF case imported from Cameroon into France reported. 5 Maps describing the distribution of DF in Africa still show Cameroon as a blank area. 6,7 We want to report the first two confirmed DF cases from Cameroon.