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Background Common causes of acute febrile illness in tropical countries have similar symptoms, which often mimic those of dengue. Accurate clinical diagnosis can be difficult without laboratory confirmation and disease burden is generally under-reported. Accurate, population-based, laboratory-confirmed incidence data on dengue and other causes of acute fever in dengue-endemic Asian countries are needed. Methods and principal findings This prospective, multicenter, active fever surveillance, cohort study was conducted in selected centers in Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam to determine the incidence density of acute febrile episodes (≥38°C for ≥2 days) in 1,500 healthy children aged 2–14 years, followed for a mean 237 days. Causes of fever were assessed by testing acute and convalescent sera from febrile participants for dengue, chikungunya, hepatitis A, influenza A, leptospirosis, rickettsia, and Salmonella Typhi. Overall, 289 participants had acute fever, an incidence density of 33.6 per 100 person-years (95% CI: 30.0; 37.8); 57% were IgM-positive for at least one of these diseases. The most common causes of fever by IgM ELISA were chikungunya (in 35.0% of in febrile participants) and S. Typhi (in 29.4%). The overall incidence density of dengue per 100 person-years was 3.4 by nonstructural protein 1 (NS1) antigen positivity (95% CI: 2.4; 4.8) and 7.3 (95% CI: 5.7; 9.2) by serology. Dengue was diagnosed in 11.4% (95% CI: 8.0; 15.7) and 23.9% (95% CI: 19.1; 29.2) of febrile participants by NS1 positivity and serology, respectively. Of the febrile episodes not clinically diagnosed as dengue, 5.3% were dengue-positive by NS1 antigen testing and 16.0% were dengue-positive by serology. Conclusions During the study period, the most common identified causes of pediatric acute febrile illness among the seven tested for were chikungunya, S. Typhi and dengue. Not all dengue cases were clinically diagnosed; laboratory confirmation is essential to refine disease burden estimates., Author Summary Acute febrile episodes are common in children living in tropical countries. Diagnosis can be challenging because symptoms of the more common infectious causes are similar and often mimic those of dengue. Asia Pacific has over 70% of the worldwide dengue disease burden, although dengue incidence is generally underestimated because most surveillance systems are passive or based on clinical diagnosis without laboratory confirmation. Understanding the local etiology of febrile illness and the incidence of dengue is important when planning large-scale vaccine trials. This prospective, active fever surveillance, cohort study was carried out in children in five dengue-endemic Asian countries – Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam – during 2010–2011. Acute febrile episodes occurred in 289 (19.3%) of the cohort of 1,500 children. Among the diseases for which antibodies were tested using commercial kits, the top three causes of acute fever were chikungunya, Salmonella Typhi and dengue, followed by influenza A, rickettsia and hepatitis A. Dengue was confirmed in 11.4% of the febrile children by viral protein detection and in 23.9% by serology. Clinical diagnosis was not sufficient to detect all dengue cases. These findings are of relevance to those planning clinical studies of vaccines against these infectious agents in Southeast Asia.

Dengue incidence has increased globally, but empirical burden estimates are scarce. Prospective methods are best-able to capture all severities of disease. CYD14 was an observer-blinded dengue vaccine study conducted in children 2–14 years of age in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam. The control group received no vaccine and resembled a prospective, observational study. We calculated the rates of dengue according to different laboratory or clinical criteria to make inferences about dengue burden, and compared with rates reported in the passive surveillance systems to calculate expansion factors which describe under-reporting. Over 6,933 person-years of observation in the control group there were 319 virologically confirmed dengue cases, a crude attack rate of 4.6%/year. Of these, 92 cases (28.8%) were clinically diagnosed as dengue fever or dengue hemorrhagic fever by investigators and 227 were not, indicating that most symptomatic disease fails to satisfy existing case definitions. When examining different case definitions, there was an inverse relationship between clinical severity and observed incidence rates. CYD14’s active surveillance system captured a greater proportion of symptomatic dengue than national passive surveillance systems, giving rise to expansion factors ranging from 0.5 to 31.7. This analysis showed substantial, unpredictable and variable under-reporting of symptomatic dengue, even within a controlled clinical trial environment, and emphasizes that burden estimates are highly sensitive to case definitions. These data will assist in generating disease burden estimates and have important policy implications when considering the introduction and health economics of dengue prevention and control interventions., Author Summary Dengue is a mosquito-borne, viral febrile disease transmitted between humans in most of the tropical and sub-tropical world. In recent years, an increasing number of cases has been widely reported. However, understanding the full disease burden remains a topic of public health research. One reason for under-reporting is that severe episodes are more likely to be captured in routine surveillance statistics, and mild episodes unreported/unrecognized. We re-analyzed data from the control arm of a dengue vaccine clinical trial in five Asian countries. The trial captured dengue incidence rates following active surveillance and virological confirmation, and we compared those with incidence rates from the passive surveillance system. As expected, the active surveillance system captured many more cases of symptomatic dengue than routine systems. Of virologically confirmed dengue in the clinical trial, only ~29% were diagnosed by investigators as dengue, indicating there is a significant disease burden excluded from existing case definitions and diagnostic practices. The analysis confirmed that dengue is under-reported, by different magnitudes, in these Asian countries. Case definition is an important determinant of burden. These findings are important when considering the health economics and public health impacts of new prevention and control tools.