Dengue Fever Fact Sheet

Dengue fever, a mosquito-borne tropical disease, is the most common and important arthropod-borne (arboviral) illness in humans. It is caused by four serotypes of the dengue virus, of which more than one can circulate during an epidemic. Infection with one serotype confers lifelong homotypic immunity to that serotype and a brief period (~2 years) of partial heterotypic immunity to other serotypes. However, an individual can eventually be infected by all four serotypes.