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. 2022 Aug 10:15:100427.
doi: 10.1016/j.onehlt.2022.100427. eCollection 2022 Dec.

Re-emergence of arbovirus diseases in the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: The role of simultaneous viral circulation between 2014 and 2019

Olivia M Man  1 , Trevon L Fuller  2 , Joelle I Rosser  3 , Karin Nielsen-Saines  1
Affiliations

Re-emergence of arbovirus diseases in the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: The role of simultaneous viral circulation between 2014 and 2019

Olivia M Man et al. One Health. .

Abstract

The burden of arbovirus diseases in Brazil has increased within the past decade due to the emergence of chikungunya and Zika and endemic circulation of all four dengue serotypes. Changes in temperature and rainfall patterns may alter conditions to favor vector-host transmission and allow for cyclic re-emergence of disease. We sought to determine the impact of climate conditions on arbovirus co-circulation in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. We assessed the spatial and temporal distributions of chikungunya, dengue, and Zika cases from Brazil's national notifiable disease information system (SINAN) and created autoregressive integrated moving average models (ARIMA) to predict arbovirus incidence accounting for the lagged effect of temperature and rainfall. Each year, we estimate that the combined arboviruses were associated with an average of 8429 to 10,047 lost Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs). After controlling for temperature and precipitation, our model predicted a three cycle pattern where large arbovirus outbreaks appear to be primed by a smaller scale surge and followed by a lull of cases. These dynamic arbovirus patterns in Rio de Janeiro support a mechanism of susceptibility enhancement until the theoretical threshold of population immunity allows for temporary cross protection among certain arboviruses. This suspected synergy presents a major public health challenge due to overlapping locations and seasonality of arbovirus diseases, which may perpetuate disease burden and overwhelm the health system.

Keywords: Arboviruses; Brazil; Chikungunya; Dengue; Environment; Zika.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Average municipality climate conditions (2014–2018) in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The average rainfall in the state of Rio de Janeiro decreased in 2017 and steadily rose during the rainy months of 2018 and 2019. On average, temperature patterns appeared to be relatively consistent between 2014 and 2018. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Monthly time series (2014–2019) of Chikungunya, Dengue, and Zika incidences per 100,000, average temperature (Celsius) and average precipitation (mm) in the state of Rio de Janeiro. Temperature is bounded to illustrate mean maximum and mean minimum temperatures for the region. Climate date from 2014 to 2018 was obtained from WorldClim using a 2.5 resolution [28]. Climate data from 2019 was obtained from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Reanalysis 5 [37].
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Spatial distribution of yearly arbovirus incidence per 100,000 in Rio de Janeiro from 2014 to 2019. Dengue virus infections peaked in early 2015, declined in 2016 when the Zika virus epidemic peaked and resurged in 2019. An initial increase in Chikungunya infections was observed in 2017, with progression across the state in 2018 and dissemination across most state municipalities in 2019.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Total reported arbovirus cases per month in the state of Rio de Janeiro, 2014 to 2019 [27], and predicted arbovirus cases were based on a time series model incorporating temperature and precipitation.
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