Dengue—It’s a Killer

It could be because you study at UESC and this place is a cesspool of gossip, because you saw my horrific rash pictures on Facebook, or because you heard my agonizing cries for help and more medicine all the way from Brazil, but I’m sure you already know. Everyone I know—and even people I don’t (like the people who work at the post office…)—know that I had dengue.

Dengue fever, cleverly named the breakbone fever, is a painful, debilitating mosquito-borne disease caused by any one of four closely related dengue viruses. These viruses are related to the viruses that cause West Nile infection and yellow fever. Don’t worry Mom, I just got my yellow fever shot.

It is transmitted by the bite of an Aedes mosquito infected with a dengue virus. The mosquito becomes infected when it bites a person with dengue virus in their blood. You…