New York: Dengue imposes a whopping $8.9 billion economic burden every year on 141 countries and territories where active transmission of the disease has been identified, a new study says.

"Our global estimates suggest that in 2013 there were a total of 58·40 million symptomatic dengue virus infections, including 13,586 fatal cases and that the total annual global cost of dengue illness was $8·9 billion," said the study published in the Lancet Infectious Diseases journal.