Dengue fever is a self-limiting, acute febrile illness caused by an arbovirus. This infection may be asymptomatic or symptomatic with its potential lifethreatening form as DHF/DSS. Severe dengue cases occur typically in children due to overproduction of proinflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokines (called cytokines storm) as well as increased microvascular permeability in them.This study aimed to find circulating dengue serotype and their clinicopathological association among pediatric patients admitted to tertiary care hospitals in Kolkata, India. Overall, 210 patients were approached, among them, 170 dengue suspected children admitted to three tertiary care hospitals were included in this study. Dengue samples were screened for the presence of dengue NS1 antigen and IgM antibodies by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Viral RNA was extracted from NS1 seropositive serum samples and subjected to molecular serotyping by semi-nested reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction. All patients were followed up for clinical manifestations and biochemical parameters associated with dengue. Cocirculation of all four serotypes was observed and DENV2 was the major circulating strain.Physiological classification of associated clinical symptoms was done as per WHO guideline and represented as a percentage variable. A multivariate logistic regression approach was used for making a regression model including dengueassociated clinical symptoms with dengue positivity or negativity as dependent variables. Thrombocytopenia was observed in 69% of patients and the commonest bleeding manifestation was petechia. Liver function profiles of infected patients were observed during follow-up and represented using a box plot. A significant change in trends of dengue-associated clinical manifestations and differential expression of liver functional profile with different phases of transition of dengue fever was observed in this study population.

Post transfusion acquired HCV infection is common in high risk group individuals such as b-thalassemia patients who depend on regular blood transfusions. This study was conducted to determine the prevalence, genotype distribution, transmission dynamics and correlation of patients age and gender with spontaneous clearance of HCV in multi-transfused b-thalassemia patients, in the state of West Bengal, India. HCV RNA was first detected, using RT-PCR, from serum samples collected from HCV seropositive b-thalassemic individuals over five years. Viral RNA was further sequenced, and genotyped, using NCBI genotyping tool, for phylogenetic and phylogeographic studies using MEGA-X and BEAST package 1.10.0, respectively. Out of 777 HCV seropositive b-thalassemic patients, 503 (64.73%) were positive for HCV RNA, while 274 (35.26%) had spontaneously cleared the virus. Female thalassemic patients and patients belonging to ages 10-14 years, had a higher chance of spontaneously clearing the virus. The most prevalent HCV genotype in this study population was 3a (77.61%) followed by 1b (11.94%). Phylogeographic analyses revealed that the 3a strains migrated from countries like Pakistan, China Myanmar and Thailand whereas the 1b strains transmitted from Bangladesh and Myanmar. The prevalence of HCV infection is very high among Indian b-thalassemic patients, which necessitates a critical look into the prevailing transfusion practices and requires implementation of more rigid donor screening criteria to decrease the rate of transfusion transmitted HCV infection, especially in the highly susceptible thalassemic patients. The use of more sensitive NAT based assays for HCV detection in donor blood is a compressing need of the hour

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