Prevalence and Risk Factors of dengue fever in pregnant women

Abstract

Background: Dengue infects an estimated 390 million people a year, and pregnancy obscures its warning signs because gestational haemodilution and overlapping obstetric symptoms mask the changes that ordinarily flag progression to severe disease [1,2].

Objective: This review synthesises the evidence on dengue prevalence among pregnant women, the risk factors for infection and severe disease, and the resulting maternal, fetal and neonatal outcomes, including vertical transmission.

Methods: We synthesised hospital-based screening cohorts, obstetric case series, matched case-control studies, registry-linkage analyses and systematic reviews addressing dengue in pregnant populations.

Findings: Dengue positivity among symptomatic pregnant women ranged from 14% to 32.7% across screening cohorts [8,9]; marked thrombocytopenia and elevated transaminases identified women at highest risk of death [14,15]; and Brazilian registry-linkage studies found symptomatic dengue independently associated with stillbirth and preterm birth [5,6], with vertical transmission concentrated near delivery [13,18].

Conclusions: Dengue in pregnancy carries a reproducible burden of maternal mortality, stillbirth, preterm birth and timing-dependent vertical transmission across distinct cohorts, and closing remaining gaps will require linked population-level surveillance as already shown in Brazil [7,16].