Dengue fever is a common viral disease prevalent in tropical and subtropical regions of the world.

It is prevalent in Southeast Asia, Southern America, Africa, the Caribbean, the Philippines, and South Pacific. Even tourist destinations like Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos are known to have dengue fever. The disease is more common in urban settings than rural areas.According to the World Health Organization, around 2.5 billion people in the world are at risk of getting dengue fever. This is around two-fifths of the world's population. Each year around 50 million new cases of dengue fever are diagnosed. The disease is endemic in over 100 countries.

Dengue fever comes with flu-like symptoms that include severe headaches, joint pains, muscle pain, high fever and red rash on the skin. Because the pain at the joints is extremely severe, dengue fever is also referred to as breakbone fever. In addition, the disease is characterized by nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. Very mild cases of dengue fever can get misdiagnosed as flu because of the similar symptoms. However, dengue fever lasts for around one week, and after that for a day the person feels normal with temperatures also being normal. Then, there is a sudden and quick rise in the temperature with the skin rash spreading all over the body.

The very first case of dengue fever was discovered by Dr. Benjamin Rush in 1779. Dr. Rush is one of the Founding Fathers of America. It was Rush who was instrumental in naming the fever as breakbone fever. At the time when the disease was identified by Rush, there were many epidemics of dengue fever in North America.

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