Revisiting Dengue in Nigeria: Epidemiological Analysis, Current Trends and Recommendations

Dengue is the world’s most significant arboviral disease and it is endemic in contemporary Nigeria. It is usually underreported and misdiagnosed because of its overlapping clinical manifestation with other common causes of fevers such as malaria and typhoid fever. By deploying rich secondary sources, this piece discovered that southwestern Nigeria carried the highest burden of dengue from 1964 to 2023, and dengue had an average prevalence rate of 21 percent between 2001 and 2023. Thus, one out of every five Nigerians is susceptible to dengue infection in contemporary Nigeria. Therefore, our review article maintains that dengue is a largely unrecognized but significant cause of fevers, which requires the utmost public health attention in modern Nigeria. This article highlights the burden of dengue to stem the tide of this arboviral disease through a high index of clinical suspicion, increased surveillance and case testing.