Dengue as a Disease Threatening Global Health: A Narrative Review Focusing on Latin America and Brazil

Abstract

Arboviruses constitute the largest known group of viruses. These viruses are the etiological agents of pathologies known as arboviruses, with dengue being one of the most prevalent. Dengue has resulted in important socioeconomic burdens placed on different countries around the world, including those in Latin America, especially Brazil. Thus, this work intends to carry out a narrative-based review of the literature, conducted using a study of the secondary data developed through a survey of scientific literature databases, and to present the situation of dengue, particularly its distribution in these localities. Our findings from the literature demonstrate the difficulties that managers face in controlling the spread of and planning a response against dengue, pointing to the high cost of the disease for public coffers, rendering the resources that are already limited even scarcer. This can be associated with the different factors that affect the spread of the disease, including ecological, environmental, and social factors. Thus, in order to combat the disease, it is expected that targeted and properly coordinated public policies need to be adopted not only in specific localities, but also globally.

Keywords: Brazil; dengue; public health; tropical areas; tropical disease.

Figure 1

Overview of the dengue transmission cycle and the main symptoms related to the disease. The transmission system of the dengue virus begins when the mosquito bites an infected person; the virus multiplies in the gut of the insect and passes into other organs, finally reaching the salivary glands, from where it must exit through the bite into the bloodstream of another person not yet infected. Created in BioRender.com (accessed on 14 March 2023).

Figure 2

Dengue incidence rate per 100,000 inhabitants in the different regions of Latin America: Andean (countries: Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela); Central America Isthmus and Mexico (countries: Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Belize, and Mexico); Latin Caribbean (countries: Cuba, Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico); and Southern Cone (countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile Paraguay, and Uruguay). Source from data: PAHO [80].

Figure 3

Data on dengue in Brazil: (a) timeline with key milestones; (b) rate of new dengue cases in the country by region (between 2013 and 2021) (data source: DATASUS [104]); and (c) the dengue virus serotypes circulating in the country by year (between 2001 and 2022) (data source: PAHO/WHO [105]). Created in BioRender.com (accessed on 10 March 2023).