Original Article

The etiology of acute infectious febrile illnesses at a tertiary care hospital: an experience from a hilly region of Uttarakhand

Abstract

Background and Objectives: The differential diagnosis of acute febrile illness (AFI) is influenced by the regional distribution of prevalent diseases. Hence, in our hospital-based data analysis, we evaluated the AFI cases presented to our center to raise awareness among clinicians and microbiologists regarding the percentage positivity of the prevailing diseases in the context of AFI based on serology, in and around the city of Dehradun.
Materials and Methods: A total of 38,869 suspected AFI patients were enrolled in the study, and their specimens were analysed for infectious etiologies, including dengue, malaria, enteric fever, and scrub typhus by antigen-antibody based detection methods.
Results: Data analysis conducted from September 2021 to December 2022 among patients with AFI revealed that enteric fever, dengue, scrub typhus, and malaria accounted for 12.65%, 7.37%, 1.44%, and 0.18% of cases, respectively.
Conclusion: Since enteric fever followed by dengue was found to be contributing the maximum, mass education regarding safe drinking water, hygiene, sanitation, and strengthening of vector control measures is the need of the hour.

1. Wangdi K, Kasturiaratchi K, Nery SV, Lau CL, Gray DJ, Clements ACA. Diversity of infectious aetiologies of acute undifferentiated febrile illnesses in south and Southeast Asia: a systematic review. BMC Infect Dis 2019; 19: 577.
2. Shelke YP, Deotale VS, Maraskolhe DL. Spectrum of infections in acute febrile illness in central India. Indian J Med Microbiol 2017; 35: 480-484.
3. Ittyachen AM, Ramachandran R. Study of acute febrile illness: a 10-year descriptive study and a proposed algorithm from a tertiary care referral hospital in rural Kerala in Southern India. Trop Doct 2015; 45: 114-117.
4. Tissera H, Samaraweera P, de Boer M, Gandhi S, Malvaux L, Mehta S, et al. The Burden of Acute Febrile Illness Attributable to dengue virus infection in Sri Lanka: A Single-Center 2-Year Prospective cohort study (2016-2019). Am J Trop Med Hyg 2021; 106: 160-167.
5. Devasagayam E, Dayanand D, Kundu D, Kamath MS, Kirubakaran R, Varghese GM. The burden of scrub typhus in India: A systematic review. PLoS Negl Trop Dis 2021; 15(7): e0009619.
6. Husain U, Kalyan RK, Jahan A, Gupta KK, Verma SK. Scrub Typhus and its co-infection with Leptospirosis at a tertiary care hospital in Uttar Pradesh. Trop Doct 2022; 52: 302-303.
7. Panda S, Swain SK, Sarangi R. An epidemiological outbreak of scrub typhus caused by Orientia tsutsugamushi - A comprehensive review. J App Biol Biotechnol 2022; 10: 76-83.
8. Robinson ML, Kadam D, Khadse S, Balasubramanian U, Raichur P, Valvi C, et al. Vector-Borne disease is a common cause of hospitalized febrile Illness in India. Am J Trop Med Hyg 2018; 98: 1526-1533.
9. Chakraborty S, Sarma N. Scrub Typhus: An Emerging Threat. Indian J Dermatol 2017, 62: 478-485.
10. Varghese GM, Trowbridge P, Janardhanan J, Thomas K, Peter JV, Mathews P, et al. Clinical profile and improving mortality trend of scrub typhus in South India. Int J Infect Dis 2014; 23: 39-43.
11. Bhandari J, Thada PK, Hashmi TM, DeVos E (2024). Typhoid Fever. In: StatPearls. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing, Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK557513/
12. Baker S, Blohmke CJ, Maes M, Johnston PI, Darton TC. The current status of enteric fever diagnostics and implications for disease Control. Clin Infect Dis 2020; 71(Suppl 2): S64-S70.
Files
IssueVol 17 No 6 (2025) QRcode
SectionOriginal Article(s)
DOI https://doi.org/10.18502/ijm.v17i6.20364
Keywords
Acute febrile illness Salmonella Fever Scrub typhus Malaria

Rights and permissions
Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
How to Cite
1.
Rawat Y, Pal S, Negi A, Husain U, Nath R, Negi N. The etiology of acute infectious febrile illnesses at a tertiary care hospital: an experience from a hilly region of Uttarakhand. Iran J Microbiol. 2025;17(6):961-965.