ENSO-driven climate variability promotes periodic major outbreaks of dengue in Venezuela

Dengue is a mosquito-borne viral disease of global impact. In Venezuela, dengue has emerged as one of the most important public health problems of urban areas with frequent epidemics since 2001. The long-term pattern of this disease has involved not only a general upward trend in cases but also a dr...

Full description

Saved in:

Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Scientific reports Vol. 8; no. 1; pp. 5727 - 11
Main Authors:	Vincenti-Gonzalez, M. F., Tami, A., Lizarazo, E. F., Grillet, M. E.
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	London Nature Publishing Group UK 10-04-2018 Nature Publishing Group
Subjects:	631/158/1469 692/699/255/2514 Climate Climate effects Climate variability Dengue - epidemiology Dengue - transmission Dengue - virology Dengue fever Disease Disease Outbreaks El Nino El Nino-Southern Oscillation Epidemics Geography, Medical Health problems Humanities and Social Sciences Humans Incidence Mosquitoes multidisciplinary Outbreaks Periodicity Precipitation Public health Rainfall Regions Science Science (multidisciplinary) Seasons Southern Oscillation Spatio-Temporal Analysis Urban areas Vector-borne diseases Venezuela - epidemiology Viral diseases Venezuela
Online Access:	Get full text
Tags:	Add Tag No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!

Description
Summary:	Dengue is a mosquito-borne viral disease of global impact. In Venezuela, dengue has emerged as one of the most important public health problems of urban areas with frequent epidemics since 2001. The long-term pattern of this disease has involved not only a general upward trend in cases but also a dramatic increase in the size and frequency of epidemic outbreaks. By assuming that climate variability has a relevant influence on these changes in time, we quantified the periodicity of dengue incidence in time-series of data from two northern regions of Venezuela. Disease cycles of 1 and 3–4 years ( p < 0.05) were detected. We determined that dengue cycles corresponded with local climate and the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) variation at both seasonal and inter-annual scales (every 2–3 years). Dengue incidence peaks were more prevalent during the warmer and dryer years of El Niño confirming that ENSO is a regional climatic driver of such long-term periodicity through local changes in temperature and rainfall. Our findings support the evidence of the effect of climate on dengue dynamics and advocate the incorporation of climate information in the surveillance and prediction of this arboviral disease in Venezuela.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23
ISSN:	2045-2322 2045-2322
DOI:	10.1038/s41598-018-24003-z