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. 2022 Jan;94(1):393-398.
doi: 10.1002/jmv.27298. Epub 2021 Sep 1.

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the incidence of dengue fever in Peru

Rubí Plasencia-Dueñas  1   2 , Virgilio E Failoc-Rojas  3 , Alfonso J Rodriguez-Morales  4   5
Affiliations

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the incidence of dengue fever in Peru

Rubí Plasencia-Dueñas et al. J Med Virol. 2022 Jan.

Abstract

Dengue virus and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 coexist in dengue-endemic countries; therefore, the adoption of preventive measures is essential to control the spread of both viruses. We conducted an ecological study to compare the temporal patterns of the incidence of dengue before and during the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in Peru. A time-series analysis comparing the incidence of dengue using a Student's t test with variance correction was performed. Poisson regression was applied to determine the incidence rate ratio (IRR) of dengue before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. The incidence of dengue was found to be increased in all endemic regions of Peru during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the highest incidences registered in Ica (IRR = 90.14), Huánuco (IRR = 38.6), and Ucayali (IRR = 23.78), with the exception of Piura (IRR = 0.83). The highest increases in the number of dengue cases per million inhabitants were in Ucayali (393.38), Tumbes (233.19), Ica (166.08), and Loreto (129.93). The gradient of dengue cases was positive in all endemic regions during the COVID-19 pandemic. The number of dengue cases per million increased during the COVID-19 pandemic throughout Peru and in several endemic regions, with the exception of Piura.

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; dengue; interrupted time series analysis, Peru.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that there are no conflict of interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Number of dengue cases per epidemiological week from January 2018 to December 2020 in nine endemic regions of Peru and nationwide. (A) Amazon. (B) Huanuco. (C) Loreto. (D) Piura. (E) Junin. (F) Tumbes. (G) Ucayali. (H) Lambayeque. (I) Ica. (J) Peru. The vertical black dotted line corresponds to the first case of COVID‐19 reported in Peru, dividing the time into two periods: before and during the COVID‐19 pandemic
Figure 2
Figure 2
Number of dengue cases per epidemiological week in 2018, 2019, and 2020 in Peru. The vertical black dotted line corresponds to the first case of COVID‐19 reported in Peru, dividing the time into two periods: before and during the COVID‐19 pandemic
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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