Background: Dengue is one of the most important mosquito borne viral disease with wide spectrum of clinical presentation and often with unpredictable clinical evolution and outcome. Approximately 50 million infections occur annually world-wide, but what’s the real size of the problem in India?  Nobody truly knows...!!  Present study was carried out to determine seropositivity, clinical profile and seasonal variation of dengue infection in central India.Methods: Study was carried out from January 2012 to December 2016. Blood samples were collected from 15,606 patients with dengue like clinical illness and serum was separated. All the samples were subjected to IgM antibody detection by dengue MAC ELISA.Results: Prevalence of dengue in dengue suspected cases was found to be 24.49% (3,822/15,606). Maximum number of positive cases, 1,548 (40.50%) were in the age group of 0-10 years. Males (60.83%) were affected more than females (39.17%). Peak was observed in the months of August, September, October and November. Common presenting features were fever followed by myalgia, arthralgia, headache and bleeding manifestations. Significant drop in platelet count was observed in patients with dengue shock syndrome and dengue haemorrhagic fever.Conclusions: Number of dengue cases in central India are on increase and continued surveillance is essential to determine epidemiological and seasonal trend.

Background: In hepatitis B virus (HBV), reverse transcriptase (RT) region of the polymerase P gene and surface S gene (HBsAg) are largely overlapped. Mutations in surface S gene may cause escape variants. In the present study, we aimed to study the prevalence and pattern of the typical HBsAg escape mutations and concomitant nucleos(t)ide analogue resistance mutation patterns in patients with chronic hepatitis B in Indian population.Methods: The present observational study was carried out from January 2021 to June 2022 with 156 known cases of hepatitis B infection. Hepatitis B viral load quantitation was done followed by HBV genotyping and drug resistance detection by PCR and sequencing.Results: Out of 156 cases of chronic hepatitis B, HBsAg escape mutations were found in 50 (32.05%) patients. Genotype D was predominant (90%). Median viral load was 4.43×105 copies/ml. Total 128 HBsAg escape mutations of 46 different patterns were observed with overall prevalence of 29.49% (46/156) in CHB infected patients. The most common substitutions were sP127T (16.67%), sA128V (14.74%), sR122K (5.13%), sY134N (3.85%), sK141R (2.56%), sS143L (2.56%) and sT126INST (1.92%). Concomitant RT mutations were detected in 20 (40%) patients. Total 68 (43.59%) RT mutations of 18 different mutation characteristics were found conferring possible or confirmed resistance to nucleos(t)ide analogues.Conclusions: The emergence of drugs resistant mutants with alteration in ‘aa’ determinant of the S protein is of some concern. The development of novel nucleos(t)ide analogues with a high barrier to resistance is warranted.  National surveillance networks should be set up.