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The purpose of this paper is to develop an active larval indices surveillance system and compare the outcomes of the implementation in primary care units (PCUs) at low and high risk of dengue.

The study design was conducted by implementing a community participation action research system in low and high dengue risk PCUs in Lansaka district, Nakhon Si Thammarat province, in the Southern Region of Thailand. There were five phases to the process including preparation of all stakeholders, situation assessment, development of the surveillance system, program implementation and evaluation. The system was developed in ten villages that were categorized as either low dengue risk PCUs (comprising six villages) or high dengue risk PCUs (four villages). A village was assigned as being at high or low dengue risk according to pre-determined criteria. The low dengue risk PCU assessments were conducted on a seven-step active larval indices surveillance system where PCU officials were additionally involved in coordinating, teaching, coaching and supporting the village health volunteers (VHVs) for dengue prevention activities. The high dengue risk PCUs, on the other hand, only followed a basic larval indices surveillance system with no follow-up support.

The outcomes of using intervention systems showed that the VHVs’ dengue knowledge and larval indices understanding in both PCUs increased significantly (p<0.01). Furthermore, the low dengue risk PCUs had a higher larval indices level than the high dengue risk PCU (p<0.01).

This study showed that the low dengue risk PCU followed an active larval indices surveillance system at the sub-district level which is appropriate for villages. This study also revealed that VHVs are needed to strengthen the capacity in terms of knowledge and skills of developing such a system to ensure reduced levels of dengue in the community.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention program for dengue fever prevention among people in rural communities.

A quasi-experimental study was designed for two groups. The intervention group received five weeks of dengue hemorrhagic prevention program consisted of knowledge broadcast, campaign, model house contest and group education. The control group received only the usual care of health promoting hospitals. The primary expected outcomes were changes in knowledge, perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefit, perceived barriers and preventive action from baseline data, post-intervention and three-month follow-up, along with a comparison between the two groups. The secondary expected outcomes were changes in house index (HI) from baseline to post-intervention and three-month follow-up, along with a comparison between the two groups.

From the total of 64 participants, 32 were randomly assigned to the control group and 32 were randomly assigned to the intervention group. There were significant differences in knowledge, perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefit, perceived barriers, preventive action and HI in the intervention group after received the five-week intervention program and at three-month follow-up (p<0.05).

Dengue hemorrhagic prevention program based on the Health Belief Model was effective in lowering HI and improving knowledge, perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefit, perceived barriers and preventive action among people in rural communities. The intervention program may be beneficial in primary care in such a rural community.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate epidemiology and control strategies of the four priority vector-borne diseases (VBDs) in Nepal, i.e. malaria, Kala-azar (visceral leishmaniasis), lymphatic filariasis (LF) and dengue fever/dengue hemorrhagic fever.

The study was a retrospective design to collect data during 1998–2016 from VBDs endemic districts of Nepal. All data were reviewed and epidemiological information of the four VBDs were analyzed.

The number of malaria cases during 1998–2016 of the 13 affected districts was declined from 8,498 to 991 cases with no record of deaths since 2012. The number of cases and deaths in the 12 kala-azar (visceral leishmaniasis) affected districts in 1998 was 1,409 and 42 cases, respectively, but was dramatically decreased in 2016 to 213 and 2 cases, respectively. LF cases of the 61 affected districts in 2011, 2014 and 2016 were 28,855, 30,000 and 33,517 cases, respectively. In total, 25 districts achieved elimination target and the remaining are expected to complete the needful cycles by 2018. Dengue incidence of the 31 affected districts during 2006–2015 was under controlled with reported cases of 642, 356 and 136 cases in 2013, 2014 and 2015, respectively, and only one death in 2015. Implementation of control strategies particularly disease management and community peoples’ awareness significantly reduced the cases and deaths of the target VBDs.

The results of this study clearly suggest that the current control strategies have been worked effectively. However, in particular of the VBDs, health education in communities in the endemic areas should be adopted for better community participation in the context of the primary health care approach and increase the effectiveness of disease control.

VBDs, i.e., malaria, kala-azar (visceral leishmaniasis), LF and dengue fever/dengue hemorrhagic fever, are major causes of morbidity and mortality in the least developed countries which include Nepal. Globalization of travel and trading, unplanned urbanization, environmental and climate change are having a significant impact on disease transmission. Therefore, the Ministry of Health of Nepal had brought some changes in strategies based on activities for disease control, vector control, preventive and preparedness for outbreak response. Consequently, the cases and deaths due to malaria, kala-azar (visceral leishmaniasis), lymphatic filaiasis and dengue fever/dengue hemorrhagic fever have been brought down markedly.

The purpose of this study is to test the effectiveness of an educational board game for increasing knowledge, positive attitudes‐beliefs, and self‐efficacy for dengue prevention in a sample of Philippine school children and adolescents. Effective board games are more advantageous than lectures because they are adaptable, inexpensive and foster learning independently of teachers or lecturers. Also tested were relationships between perceived fun by students playing the game and outcomes.

A school‐based pre‐test/post‐test experimentally controlled design was employed in a Filipino primary and secondary school population.

The lecture was more effective in increasing knowledge. But neither was more effective than the other in increasing positive attitudes‐beliefs and self‐efficacy. Both modes produced specifically significant increases in knowledge and self‐efficacy; only the lecture produced significant increases in attitudes‐beliefs. Also, there was a significant relationship between fun and self‐efficacy in the game group at the reduced regression model level but not in the presence of all study variables.

No long term outcomes or behavioral change outcomes were measured. However, an educational game may increase knowledge and self‐efficacy about the dengue fever without the assistance of a teacher or other pre‐game instructional aids. In addition, the board game technique is flexible and easily adapted to other community or school health issues.

This was the first experimentally controlled study on the use of a game with the topic of dengue. The study on the use of a game was the first to demonstrate a significant increase in self‐efficacy as a result of the play of a board game. Original instruments measured self‐efficacy related to dengue control and also the variable of fun.

After almost a decade, the re-appearance of dengue fever in Argentina caused panic and fears. Unlike Bolivia, Brazil and Paraguay, where prevention policies have been followed, the future of dengue is uncertain in Argentina; the present paper does not have political affiliation but the purpose of this paper is to emphasizes the role that mass media plays in the coverage of epidemics.

In moments of disorder, uncertainness or disaster, societies experience a shift in the ways they perceive their reality.

In the times, media plays a dominant role in constructing the reality that the authors get to consume. Such reality is reflective of media’s own biases and those of the vested interests that control the media.

This essay draws from social psychology and allied literature to highlight how the recent reemergence of dengue in Argentina was employed as a lever for achieving a range of ulterior objectives.

The purpose of this study was to apply the OH-SMART approach on dengue vector control and assess the influence on knowledge, attitude, practice (KAP) amongst elementary students in Majalengka as well as check the dengue serotypes distribution.

This study was designed by sequential exploration. An OH-SMART workshop involving local government institutions, schools, colleges and health professional organizations was conducted. A total of 334 elementary students, chosen by cluster sampling, participated including 171 in the intervention group and 163 in the control group. A self-administered questionnaire was used to assess the differences in the subject's KAP. Dengue serotypes were analyzed by reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), and the distribution was measured by GPS. Descriptive statistics, paired t-test and the Wilcoxon rank test were used for data analysis.

There were eight gaps in Dengue vector control in Majalengka and three main recommendations after the OH-SMART workshop i.e. the formation of OH-teams, the preparation of module training, and training of vector control in the schools. After the program, there were statistically significant differences between the intervention and control groups (p = 0,001, CI 95%). All differences in the intervention group were higher than in the control. The most commonly found dengue serotype was DEN-1.

OH-SMART has never been applied in Indonesia, especially in a local government setting but is recognized as an effective approach in the prevention of vector-borne disease and zoonotic.

This paper aims to review the potential application of surface plasmon resonance (SPR) in diagnosis of dengue virus (DENV-2) E-protein and the development of SPR to become an alternative DENV sensor.

In this review, the existing standard laboratory techniques to diagnosis of DENV are discussed, together with their drawbacks. To overcome these drawbacks, SPR has been aimed to be a valuable optical biosensor for identification of antibodies to the DENV antigen. The review also includes the future studies on three-dimensional poly(amidoamine) (PAMAM) dendrimer-surface-assembled monolayer (SAM)-Au multilayer thin films, which are envisaged to have high potential sensitive and selective detection ability toward target E-proteins.

Application of SPR in diagnosis of DENV emerged over recent years. A wide range of immobilized biorecognition molecules have been developed to combine with SPR as an effective sensor. The detection limit, sensitivity and selectivity of SPR sensing in DENV have been enhanced from time to time, until the present.

The main purpose of this review is to provide authors with up-to-date and useful information on sensing DENV using SPR and to introduce a novel three-dimensional PAMAM-SAM-Au multilayer thin films for future research on SPR sensing applications.

This paper has proposed a Fog architecture-based framework, which classifies dengue patients into uninfected, infected and severely infected using a data set built in 2010. The aim of this proposed framework is to developed a latency-aware system for classifying users into different categories based on their respective symptoms using Internet of Things (IoT) sensors and audio and video files.

To achieve the aforesaid aim, a smart framework is proposed, which consist of three components, namely, IoT layer, Fog infrastructure and cloud computing. The latency of the system is reduced by using network devices located in the Fog infrastructure. Data generated by IoT layer will first be processed by Fog layer devices which are in closer proximity of the user. Raw data and data generated will later be stored on cloud infrastructure, from where it will be sent to different entities such as user, hospital, doctor and government healthcare agencies.

Experimental evaluation proved the hypothesis that using the Fog infrastructure can achieve better response time for latency sensitive applications with the least effect on accuracy of the system.

The proposed Fog-based architecture can be used with IoT to directly link it with the Fog layer.

Piperidine side chain-functionalized N, N′-bissalicylidene phenylene di amine di-anion (salphen) consisting of salphen-Zn and salphen-Cu are able to intercalate with nucleic base stacking of DNA and can be applied as an optical DNA hybridization detector. Attaching DNA and salphen to glass surfaces has been done via coating the surface with the silane coupling agents containing 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane that was synthesized for acting as a high-affinity RNA carrier matrix. The Schiff base salphen-zinc (II) and salphen-Cu (II) complexes-labelled probe to target nucleic acid renders a colour change of the DNA biosensor to a green and red background colour for zinc and copper, respectively. This study aims to indicate that the DNA biosensor data with high efficiency is used for detection of dengue virus serotypes 2 (DENV-2) and Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) concentration via salphen-Zn (II) and salphen-Cu (II), respectively, in human samples.

¹H-NMR and ¹³C-NMR have been used via PerkinElmer LAMBDA 35 instrument. The authors also used a double beam spectrophotometer with (CH₃)4Si (TMS) as reference and dimethyl sulfoxide as solvent reference in pH = 7.0. Various DNA concentrations have been used for UV spectrophotometry at 300 nm and 400 nm for zinc and copper complexes, respectively. BRUKER mass spectra with DIONEX Ultimate 3000 LC model were used for all measurements. Mettler Teledo model (DSC882e) of differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) was used for measure the melting temperature of metal zinc and copper complexes. The morphology of the silica Nano spheres (SiNs) were scanned by FESEM with Model JSM-6700F from Japan.

The Cu (II) and Zn (II)-salphen-viruses DNA system for CHIKV and DENV-2, respectively, in different concentration have been investigated via various spectroscopies (Figure 3). CHIKV and DENV-2 DNA were selected from human saliva and urine samples as models for conformations of human G4-DNA. By increasing the amounts of DNAs, and G4, the UV–Vis bands of located above 300 nm, experienced a hypochromic effect. The Cu2+ complex exhibits selectivity towards the G4, and there is a similar affinity for Zn²⁺ complex binds to the G4. These results collectively suggest that the Cu²⁺ complex is stronger than the Zn2+ complex. The authors have found copper (II) and zinc (II) compounds and nucleic acid-complexes are strongly fluorescent molecules in the low energy range, from the visible to the near-infrared. Since the fluorescent emission of Zn (II) and Cu (II) complexes are enhanced by the binding to nucleic acids upon visible light exposure when bound to DNA. These complexes are important as selective fluorescent probes for nucleic acids and to highlight their potential application. UV–vis spectroscopy is an accurate for finding the extent of ligand interaction with DNA and metallic complexes–DNA binding. Generally, the binding of intercalative compounds to DNA can be characterized through absorption spectral titrations, where lowering in absorbance (hypochromism) and shift to longer wavelengths (red shift) were observed in this work.

The serum samples have been provided as citrate and collected in tubes after blood is allowed to clot. Then, it has been separated by centrifugation, and the authors have kept serum refrigerated at 4°C or frozen at –20°C. It is notable; specimens have been confirmed by Centres for Disease Control (CDC)-Dengue Branch previously. For the work, these samples have been frozen previously, and the diagnostic practiced tests at the CDC-Dengue Branch have been validated in serum and plasma. Therefore, plasma separated in lavender or heparins are suitable and acceptable for serology testing.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of breeding containers on the production of Aedes mosquitoes after a vector-control program in households that might support dengue transmission in tourist attraction areas of Bang Kachao Riverbend, Thailand.

A cross-sectional study was conducted in an ecotourism area of Bang Kachao Riverbend, Thailand, during the period October 2016 to September 2017. A total of 832 households from five villages participated in the study. Data collection employed an interview questionnaire, larval mosquito survey and measurements of the chemical properties of the water in each container. A binary logistic regression model was used to investigate the characteristics of water containers influencing the presence or absence of Aedes immatures.

The study found that water containers located inside households had a highly presence of Aedes immatures (2.22 times) compared with outdoor containers. Water containers without lids and water containers with ineffective had a high presence of Aedes immatures (3.69 and 2.54 times, respectively). In addition, the chemical properties of the water inside the containers, such as pH, influenced the presence of Aedes immatures (1.76 times) (OR=1.76, 95% CI=1.59–1.96).

The study results emphasized the characteristics of water containers in households located in a tourist attraction area. The findings may inform public health vector-control messages for households located in the tourist attraction area.