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For the sake of brevity, reciting that the incidence of dengue fever and dengue hemorrhagic fever, an acute febrile illness transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, is on the rise can succinctly summarize this graph. Hundreds of thousands of dengue cases are reported worldwide each year. Given the difficulty in obtaining full reporting, the actual number of human infections is probably much higher than the number reported. Dengue is usually a nonspecific febrile illness that resolves with supportive therapy but the clinical spectrum ranges from asymptomatic infection through severe hemorrhage and sudden fatal shock. The pathophysiology of the severe forms of dengue may be related to sequential infection with different serotypes, variations in virus virulence, interaction of the virus with environmental and host factors or a combination of these factors. In the recent past, dengue transmission has increased in most countries of the Americas and epidemics are occurring at more frequent intervals. Along with the increased incidence of dengue fever has been the emergence of dengue hemorrhagic fever, with a major epidemic in Cuba (1981) and a smaller epidemic in Mexico (1984). Moreover, there has been an increased occurrence of dengue hemorrhagic fever cases throughout this region.