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ABSTRACT

Introduction: - Dengue fever is a febrile illness caused by the dengue virus (DENV), which mainly spreads via bites from infected Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. It has 4 serotypes (DENV-1–4), which are antigenically distinct. Currently, the World Health Organization reports that dengue is distributed throughout 128 countries, with recent models suggesting that as many as 400 million infections occur annually. Dengue virus transmission is endemic in more than 120 countries with an estimated 100 million clinically apparent infections occurring annually, making it the world’s most important arthropod-borne viral disease.

Objective: - To investigate the outbreak of Dengue Fever and identify the risk factors for the occurrence of the outbreak there by provide appropriate control and prevention measures.

Study Design: Facility based unmatched case-control study with ratio of cases to control (1:2) was conducted within the period of October 15 to November 25/2020.

Data Collection procedures and Tools:- Structured questionnaires have been used to collect data, which was adopted from different literatures. The data was collected through face-to face interview with individual participants, or their families in case of children. Cases were identified at health facilities and two unmatched controls were selected per each case. Controls were the neighbor of the cases.  Following the cases, controls data was collected by house to house visit at community level.  Data was collected by four trained data collectors which are 2 nurses And 2 health officers. Line listing of cases was collected from health facilities for further analysis.

Data Analysis Procedures:-The collected data was entered using Epidata and analyzed using SPSS version 22 statistical software for risk factor identification. All independent variables were checked for presence of association in bivariate analysis. Those variable with p-value <0.25 were again analyzed in multivariate model. Those variable with p-value<0.05 after multivariate analysis became statistically significant. Dengue fever illness is out come variable for which association is analyzed with other independent variables.

Results: - The outbreak continued from 1^st August 2020 till 24^th October 2020. A total of 569 dengue fever cases were reported from different health facilities found in Diredawa city administration. Over all attack rate of this outbreak was161cases per 100,000 populations and   Sex specific attack rate were 147 cases per 100,000 among males and 148 cases per 100,000 populations among females. In this study Cases fatality rate was zero. Productive age groups (15-60 years of age ) were highly affected than any other age group. The risk factors for occurrence of Dengue fever outbreak in Dire Dawa were presence of similarly sick person in family (AOR=5.8:95%CI: 2.2-15.7) and water container in the compound(AOR=2.5:95%CI: 1.2-5.7).

Conclusion and recommendation

Over all attack rate of this outbreak was 161cases per 100,000 populations. The risk factors for occurrence of this outbreak were presence of Water container in compound and similarly sick person in family. To mitigate the future outbreak in Dire Dawa, it is better to empower the community on draining accumulated water near house hold, keeping environmental hygiene including covering water container in the compound and early treat family member who gets ill.