Dengue is a severe, flu-like illness with severe joint pain. It affects young children and adults but is not normally lethal.
 

Yet dengue fever complications can kill. In a small number of cases, the disease progresses to haemorrhage, shock and, at worst, death. Whether a person develops DHF will depend on the strain of the infecting virus, as well as the person’s age, immune status and genetic predisposition.
 

There are about 500,000 cases of DHF a year, severe enough to require hospitalisation. As many as 5 per cent of DHF cases are fatal – a very large proportion are children. Without proper treatment fatalities can rise to 20 per cent.