COVID-19 and dengue co-infection: A dual challenge for diagnosis and treatment

Dengue and COVID-19 infections share overlapping clinical features and laboratory parameters, making diagnosis and treatment challenging. Very few reports are there in the literature highlighting the existence of such co-infection from India. In the present study, we are describing a case series of three patients with COVID-19 and dengue in a tertiary care centre. All three patients had severe thrombocytopenia and raised C-reactive protein (CRP), which is also a common finding in COVID-19 infection. Due to these overlapping features, dengue co-infection was not initially suspected. The patients were treated symptomatically. Two of these patients also had super-added bacterial infection, which succumbed to death due to infection-related complications. Therefore, it is very important to consider the coexistence of two different pathogens in an endemic area for any specific type of infection.