Introduction: Even after the discovery of vaccines for dengue fever, it remains a major public health problem in developing tropical and subtropical countries, especially in India. The dengue fever has a varied clinical spectrum ranging from a mild headache to severe organ impairment or bleeding, depending on the virulence and susceptibility of the individual. The current study investigated the clinical profile of laboratoryconfirmed dengue patients. A secondary objective was to find the role of haematological parameters in prognosis. Material and Methods: This was a retrospective study conducted in a tertiary care hospital at Madurai following a dengue fever outbreak between August 2017 to November 2017 among laboratory-confirmed dengue patients older than 16 years. All the relevant clinical and laboratory investigation details of the patients were obtained from the medical records of the hospital. Results: Fever was present in all the cases with an average duration of 4.86 ± 1.59 days followed by myalgia (57.39%), vomiting (46.96%), headache (30.43%) and abdominal pain (20%). Bleeding and hepatic complication was presented by 22.16% and 50.43%. The mean platelet recovery duration was 8.42 ± 1.74 days. A strong positive correlation between day of recovery (increasing trend of platelet) from the onset of fever and WBC recovery (r s value: 0.0.713, P value: <0.001) was observed. Conclusion: Dengue fever patients have varied clinical features varying from fever to severe hepatic complication. For assessing the prognosis of dengue fever, along with the continuous monitoring of clinical profile and platelet count, evaluation of WBC recovery is also recommended.

BACKGROUND Bacteraemia is the presence of bacteria in the bloodstream that are alive and capable of reproducing. The incidence of bloodstream infections (BSI) either of the community-acquired origin or of hospital-acquired origin has dramatically increased. Identifying patients with high risk of bacteraemia in emergency department (ED) using predictive models is needed. The present study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of procalcitonin as well as other biomarkers as diagnostic, predictive markers of bacteraemia in an adult patient population in India. METHODS A descriptive observational study was conducted at the ED of a tertiary care hospital in India. Fifteen years or older patients who were ready to give at least two samples of blood for blood culture were recruited. Data on demographic variables, predisposing conditions, clinical presentations, laboratory tests, and presumptive diagnosis was analysed using SPSS and P value of 0.05 was considered statistically significant. A logistic model was built using an iterative procedure which was later simplified into a coefficient-based scoring system. RESULTS Out of 78 patients, (66.67 %) from the emergency department and (33.33 %) from out-patient department (OPD) were enrolled. Among the study population, 40 (51.28 %) were with bacteraemia, and the remaining 38 (48.72 %) had no bacteraemia. There was no statistically significant difference in levels of procalcitonin, pulse rate, respiratory rate, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, SPO2, total count, MCV, RDW, MPV, albumin, urea, creatinine between bacteraemia and no bacteraemia. (P value > 0.05). The mean procalcitonin was 33.02 ± 43.46. CONCLUSIONS Although, increased PCT levels can be useful as predictors of bacteremias in the emergency department, interpretation should be made carefully when deciding the prescription of antibiotics. KEYWORDS Procalcitonin, Bacteraemia, PCT levels

Background: Regular physical activity can improve people's overall health and reduce various risks for morbidity and mortality due to a sedentary lifestyle. Although the evidence linking obesity with many chronic diseases is well established, the relationship with self-rated health is not clear. The study aimed to assess the relationship between physical activity and self-rated health and how it is related to obesity.Methods: The cross-sectional study included 132 individuals above18 years, of both genders, with BMI above 25kg/m2. Data was collected using a structured proforma which included apart from demographic parameters, anthropometry parameters, self-reported physical activity, health status and stress levels of the subjects. Chi-square test/Fisher's exact test was used to assess the association between BMI, physical activity and self-rated health.Results: A total of 132 subjects were included with a mean age of 48.44±11.23 years, with an almost equal proportion of males and females. The mean of BMI was 29.54±3.99. Most of them reported having normal physical activity (61.36%) with only 3% of them having high physical activity. The self-rated health of the subjects revealed 45.45% of them is having fair health and 43.18% of them having poor health. The mean a number of hours spent by sitting/sedentary activity in a week were 32.32±21.09.Conclusions: The study findings revealed that the irrespective of the degree of physical activity both overweight and obese subjects rated their health fair to poor.