DOI: https://doi.org/10.36347/sjams.2025.v13i10.010

Pages: 1749-1754

Background: Dengue and Malaria are still among the top causes of morbidity and mortality world-wide. especially in tropical and subtropical areas. Given their overlapping clinical presentations, it's important for doctors to understand the difference between these two conditions. This study intended to evaluate the awareness, disease experience and preventive conduct of medical students regarding Dengue & Malaria and to describe a comprehensive case library-based overview of 2. What do we know about these diseases? their clinical and diagnostic differentiation. Methods: A cross-sectional questionnaire survey was conducted on N = 120 medical students at different levels of training. Demographics, background knowledge (pathogen, vector and season), personal experience with clinical infection (symptomatology, duration of symptoms, hospitalization) and awareness of a possible diagnostic test were included. Results: While a majority of students correctly identified the primary vector for Malaria (79% Anopheles) and Dengue (69.6% Aedes), significant knowledge gaps were noted regarding the causative organisms, with only 46.7% correctly identifying Dengue as viral and 53.3% identifying Malaria as protozoal. Common symptoms reported in students who had been diagnosed were Fever (90.2%), Headache (69.6%), and Body pain (68.5%). A case-based differential diagnosis table was constructed, highlighting key discriminating features such as classical fever pattern, presence of rash, and gold-standard diagnostic modalities (NS1 vs. Peripheral Smear). Conclusion: The study demonstrates a rather poor knowledge base amongst medical students but does emphasize the importance for educational intervention addressed especially to, the etiology, accurate epidemiology. publisher-types in press copyright of this article is retained by the publisher.