Fight against dengue in India: progresses and challenges

At the end of the last century, India has faced resurgence of many infectious diseases, of which dengue is one of the most important in terms of morbidity and mortality. The National Vector Borne Disease Control Program data show that dengue is established in India and is becoming endemic to many areas ( dengue cases have increased steadily from similar to 450 to similar to 50,000 from 2000 to 2012). Despite extensive efforts being made in developing the effective dengue control measures, the number of dengue cases, their severity, and geographical boundaries are expanding alarmingly and posing dengue as one of the deadly disease. Recently, the increasing burden of dengue in the country has attracted the scientific as well as Indian Government's administrative attention; however, a lot remain to be achieved for managing the disease under threshold level. Like other vector-borne diseases, better management of the dengue needs balanced approach involving various aspects like disease prevention, cure/treatment, and the vector control, simultaneously. We have briefly discussed here the situation of dengue in India and have tried to highlight the worrying facets of dengue control and its implementation in Indian perspective. The review on various aspects of dengue control has revealed an urgent need for permanent surveillance programs, coupled with improvised disease diagnostics, effective anti-dengue treatment measures, and controlling the disease transmission by following an effective implementation of vector control programs.