Pediatric Dengue Cohort Study

The Pediatric Dengue Cohort Study (PDCS)  follows a cohort of 3700 children aged 2-14 at high risk for dengue in Managua’s densely-populated, low to mid-socioeconomic status District II near the Lago de Managua.

Dengue is the most important mosquito-borne viral disease affecting humans, and dengue fever and dengue hemorrhagic fever/dengue shock syndrome have emerged as major public health problems, particularly in Southeast Asia and Latin America. An effective, tetravalent vaccine could dramatically improve the fate of millions of people who are affected by this disease. Recent data indicate that by age 10, 90-95% of children in Managua have been infected with one or more of the four dengue virus serotypes, and up to one in four children is infected with dengue virus each year. The pediatric dengue cohort study, a collaboration between the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of California, Berkeley, the Ministry of Health of Nicaragua and the Sustainable brings together the Nicaraguan laboratory, epidemiology, and clinical sectors in an unprecedented collaboration, building scientific capability and infrastructure to a level previously out of reach.  The study, conducted under international standards for Good Laboratory Practices, Good Clinical Practice and Quality Control with the support of an array of information and communication technologies, provides detailed and well-documented epidemiological data linked with biologic specimens from a pediatric population in a highly dengue-endemic Latin American setting that enables numerous questions about the pathogenesis and epidemiology of dengue to be addressed.

The Pediatric Dengue Cohort in Managua is now the longest continuously running (since 2004) pediatric cohort in the world and provides invaluable data and biological samples that are informing an array of scientific and public health studies.