Clinical and Epidemiological Characteristics of Chikungunya and Dengue Infections in Provincial Hospitals of Davao de Oro, Philippines

Mosquito-borne diseases like dengue and chikungunya are endemic in the tropical region and is a common cause of acute febrile illness in both adults and children. The Philippines, home to over a hundred million residents and visited by several million tourists each year, is one such region where the risk of these diseases is endemic. To better understand the detailed situation, we estimated the proportion of these diseases in the community by conducting a prospective observational study conducted in four provincial hospitals of Davao de Oro, Philippines from February 2019 to February 2020. Serum from 382 study participant was used for laboratory confirmation of dengue or chikungunya either by antigen, antibody or by RT-PCR. Dengue was diagnosed in 57.1%, chikungunya 7.07%, co-infection with both dengue and chikungunya in 7.3%, and the etiology was undetermined in 35.9% of study participants. Common clinical symptoms included fever, headache, and rash, which were overlapping symptoms and clinically indistinguishable at presentation to the hospital, necessitating the need for laboratory diagnostics. The identification of the presence of chikungunya in Davao de Oro calls for increased awareness, improved diagnostics, and integrated disease control measures to manage outbreaks that can occur in dengue endemic regions.