Dept. of Internal Medicine, Virology, Pediatrics, Hematology, PGIMER, Chandigarh, India.
Abstracts of the papers presented at the XVIII National Conference of Indian Virological Society at Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India, December 11–13, 2008.
Dengue viral infection (dengue fever/dengue hemorrhagic fever) is endemic in several parts of India with epidemics occurring almost every third year. The reemergence of Chikungunya which is transmitted by the common vector mosquito Aedes aegypti causing clinical manifestations similar to dengue has again created problems in specific diagnosis. Thus, the present study was designed to evaluate the utility of multiplex PCR for simultaneous and rapid detection of dengue and chikungunya viral infections. A total of 16 samples positive for dengue viral RNA (by uniplex dengue PCR) and 2 samples positive for chikungunya (by uniplex chikungunya PCR) were included in the study. These samples were subjected to multiplex PCR using both dengue and chikungunya specific primers. Specific bands for dengue at 511bp and chikungunya at 330bp were observed in the respective positive samples. Standard strains of dengue and chikungunya virus were used as controls. Multiplex PCR was found to be useful for simultaneous detection of dengue and chikungunya viral infection from clinical samples.
