Objectives: This is a retrospective study in which all neonates with confirmed dengue fever mother admitted to our special care nursery from March 2014 to March 2015 were recruited. This is to determine the percentage of positive dengue serology in the neonates of mother with confirmed dengue fever and to investigate the correlation between the duration of maternal illness with these neonatal seropositivity of dengue antibody and their presenting symptoms.
Method: A total of 22 neonates whose mother with confirmed dengue fever were recruited out of which 14 (63.6%) neonates of confirmed dengue fever mothers had positive dengue serology.
Results: Eight out of fourteen neonates were dengue seropositive when mother dengue illness was between day 1 to 5 of illness (acute phase) at the time of delivery. Thirteen out of twenty-two neonates (59%) were symptomatic, out of which 61.5% (8 out of 13) were delivered during maternal acute phase of illness.
Conclusion: From this study, we concluded that neonates were more likely to be dengue seropositive and symptomatic when mother presented in acute phase of illness during delivery. However, our sample size was small, only 22 neonates were recruited from a single centre, therefore a larger sample size from multicentre is required in future.