Dengue fever is still a threat to people living in the tropics. The WHO reported there has been an increase in cases by 30 times in the past five decades. Of 2.5 billions of world population there were 50-100 million of cases each year in over 100 endemic countries. Annually, an increase reaches up to 100 thousand cases with 20 thousand being fatal.
Head of Tropical Infection Disease Unit at Gatot Soebroto Hospital, dr. Soroy Lardo, Sp.PD., FINASIM., said if not treated right, dengue fever would be fatal. It is difficult to identify so it can disrupt monitoring efforts to prevent virus transmissions.
Dengue fever has the symptoms of thrombocytopenia, spontaneous bleeding, and gradual plasm leakage that can cause a shock. Meanwhile, the pathogenesis mechanism or dengue shock syndrome (DSS) are still unclear. However, there are some mechanisms that explains the autoimmune response to dengue virus infection, which include molecular mimicry, bystander activation and viral persistence.
“Some recent research proved that dengue fever is caused by autoimmune phenomenon that is triggered by dengue virus infection,” said the lecturer from UPN Veteran Jakarta in his doctoral promotion at Faculty of Medicine UGM on Tuesday (22/11). Soroy defended his disertation titled “NS 1 Antibody in Dengue Fever: Clinical Aspect Study, NS 1 Antibody as Predictor and Protective Functions”.
Soroy examined the autoimmune role, particularly NS 1 antibody, to the worsening dengue fever case. It proved that the NS 1 antibody did not serve as predictor to the worsening of the fever. But this antibody may serve as the protective factor to the clinical worsening of dengue fever.
“Modelling results of thrombocyte results showed that SGPT value, leuckocyte, Ig M Anti NS 1 and Ig G Anti NS1 are the predictor to the worsening dengue fever,” he concluded.