A review of hospitalised cases of dengue in Cairns, Queensland, during a dengue serotype 3 virus epidemic in 2008-2009

A large outbreak of Dengue 3 occurred during the wet season of 2008/9 in the city of Cairns in Far North Queensland, Australia. Of the 915 reported cases of Dengue 3, there were 73 patients requiring 75 hospital admissions. When compared with a dengue 3 epidemic that occurred in 1997/8, the rate of hospital admission was lower, but there were more (six) recorded cases of Dengue Haemorrhagic fever. One of the patients had SIADH in association with encephalopathy. Use of the old diagnostic criteria for DHF was associated with inability to classify many patients. There was one recorded death. Increasingly frequent outbreaks of dengue can be expected to be associated with more frequent occurrence of severe cases