A retrospective analysis on seroprevalence of acute viral hepatitis observed among dengue patients attending a tertiary care centre in central India.

PURPOSE: The present study was conducted retrospectively to assess the frequency of acute viral hepatitis among the clinically suspected dengue cases presented at our tertiary care centre during 2021.

METHODS: To determine the presence of acute viral hepatitis; Hepatitis A virus (HAV) and Hepatitis E virus (HEV) infections, 104 specimens were selected from the dengue-suspected clinical specimens received during 2021 on the basis of acute viral hepatitis symptoms. Following this, serological diagnosis was performed on those samples using anti-HAV IgM and anti-HEV IgM ELISA kits.

RESULTS: Based on sero-positivity for IgM antibodies, 3 (5.3%) dengue virus (DENV) seropositive samples were positive for both HAV and HEV, while among DENV seronegative cases, 11 (22.91%) samples were positive for HEV and 1 (2.08%) sample was positive for HAV, pointing towards misdiagnosis due to overlapping symptoms. Additionally, co-infection of HAV & HEV in 1 sample was also observed in this study.

CONCLUSIONS: This study revealed the presence of acute hepatitis infections among the dengue cases during monsoon and post-monsoon season. Overlapping of the clinical manifestations of these diseases can create misdiagnosis incidences raising risk for underreporting of the true cases of acute viral hepatitis infection. Dengue-suspected patients with selected symptoms during the monsoon and post-monsoon season should additionally be screened for acute hepatitis infections, as suggested in this study.