LAUSR

Dengue fever is one of the most prominent emerging arboviral infections and serves as a leading causeof death inAsian andLatinAmerican countries. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the burden of dengue fever has grown dramatically over the last two decades, with half of the world’s population currently at risk of this lethal infection. (WHO, 2021). The WHO, on May 19, 2021, declared this Aedes mosquito-laden infection endemic in approximately 100 countries (WHO, 2021). As documented by Bhatt et al., there are approximately 400 million cases of dengue fever recorded each year, of which 96 million patients need clinical management of the disease every year (Bhatt et al., 2013). From 2000 to 2015, deaths from dengue increased from 960 to 4032 (WHO, 2021). The burden of infection is concentrated up to 70% in developing Asian countries, specifically those strugglingwith inadequate healthcare systems (Bhatt et al., 2013). When the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is already putting immense pressure on healthcare staff and affecting their physical and mental health (Ho et al., 2020), a dengue outbreak is discerning the further collapse of the fragile healthcare system. The co-occurrence of COVID-19 and dengue fever served as amajor drawback for Asian countries having inadequately facilitated hospitals. As reported on October 6, 2021, the isolated wards established in Pakistan for dengue patients in major hospitals of the city went out of the space for critical patients visiting with low platelets (The Dawn Newspaper, 2021).Misdiagnosis of COVID-19 infection as dengue fever was also noticed by several surveys conducted globally (Harapan et al., 2021). This could be due to the serological cross reactivity of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 antigen and Dengue virus antibodies or due to the similar clinical features of both infections (Harapan et al., 2021). Studies have reported that 25% of patients with confirmed dengue diagnoses share symptoms of COVID-19, such as cough and upper respiratory tract symptoms. Similarly, COVID19 may manifest itself as fever with muscle and joint pain without respiratory symptoms, thus mimicking dengue infection, especially in infants. Patients with these symptoms must be investigated for both diseases to make a confirmed diagnosis (Nacher et al., 2020). Delayed diagnosis and later management of COVID-19 infection can further overwhelm theongoing rushof critical patientswithinhospitals