Question
A 3-year-old child suddenly develops a high fever, with symptoms recurring at night, accompanied by nausea and vomiting. With the recent dengue fever outbreak, parents are worried that the child may have been infected. How should one respond?
Answer
The typical symptoms of dengue fever include fever, vomiting, rash, lymph node swelling, and muscle pain. If the child resides in a dengue fever endemic area and has a history of mosquito bites, and shows signs of fever and vomiting, it is recommended to start symptomatic treatment and closely monitor the child. A confirmed diagnosis usually requires hospital examination, including routine blood tests and specialized dengue fever blood tests such as the serum complement fixation test, neutralization test, or hemagglutination inhibition test. A single serum complement fixation test titer exceeding 1:32, or a red cell agglutination test titer exceeding 1:1280, as well as a fourfold increase in the antibody titer of the convalescent phase serum compared to the acute phase, can all serve as diagnostic criteria.