Dengue fever (ˈdɛŋɡeɪ, ˈdɛŋɡiː), also known as breakbone fever, is an infectious tropical disease

Tropical disease

Tropical diseases are diseases that are prevalent in or unique to tropical and subtropical regions. The diseases are less prevalent in temperate climates, due in part to the occurrence of a cold season, which controls the insect population by forcing hibernation. Insects such as mosquitoes and...

 caused by the dengue virus

Dengue virus

Dengue virus in one of four serotypes is the cause of dengue fever. It is a mosquito-borne single positive-stranded RNA virus of the family Flaviviridae; genus Flavivirus...

. Symptoms include fever

Fever

Fever is a common medical sign characterized by an elevation of temperature above the normal range of due to an increase in the body temperature regulatory set-point. This increase in set-point triggers increased muscle tone and shivering.As a person's temperature increases, there is, in...

, headache

Headache

A headache or cephalalgia is pain anywhere in the region of the head or neck. It can be a symptom of a number of different conditions of the head and neck. The brain tissue itself is not sensitive to pain because it lacks pain receptors. Rather, the pain is caused by disturbance of the...

, muscle

Myalgia

Myalgia means "muscle pain" and is a symptom of many diseases and disorders. The most common causes are the overuse or over-stretching of a muscle or group of muscles. Myalgia without a traumatic history is often due to viral infections...

 and joint pains

Arthralgia

Arthralgia literally means joint pain; it is a symptom of injury, infection, illnesses or an allergic reaction to medication....

, and a characteristic skin rash that is similar to measles

Morbilliform

The term morbilliform refers to a rash that looks like measles. The rash consists of macular lesions that are red and usually 2-10 mm in diameter but may be confluent in places...

. In a small proportion of cases the disease develops into the life-threatening dengue hemorrhagic fever, resulting in bleeding

Bleeding

Bleeding, technically known as hemorrhaging or haemorrhaging is the loss of blood or blood escape from the circulatory system...

, low levels of blood platelets

Thrombocytopenia

Thrombocytopenia is a relative decrease of platelets in blood.A normal human platelet count ranges from 150,000 to 450,000 platelets per microliter of blood. These limits are determined by the 2.5th lower and upper percentile, so values outside this range do not necessarily indicate disease...

 and blood plasma leakage, or into dengue shock syndrome, where dangerously low blood pressure occurs.

Dengue is transmitted by several species of mosquito

Mosquito

Mosquitoes are members of a family of nematocerid flies: the Culicidae . The word Mosquito is from the Spanish and Portuguese for little fly...

 within the genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 Aedes

Aedes

Aedes is a genus of mosquito originally found in tropical and subtropical zones, but now found on all continents excluding Antarctica. Some species have been spread by human activity. Aedes albopictus, a most invasive species was recently spread to the New World, including the U.S., by the used...

, principally A. aegypti

Aedes aegypti

The yellow fever mosquito, Aedes aegypti is a mosquito that can spread the dengue fever, Chikungunya and yellow fever viruses, and other diseases. The mosquito can be recognized by white markings on legs and a marking in the form of a lyre on the thorax...

.