Dengue and diabetes comorbidity: an emerging public health threat

Abstract

Dengue is of growing global public health concern. Diabetes is a significant risk factor for severe dengue and dengue-related mortality. Countries with the highest number of reported dengue cases are projected to experience a substantial increase in diabetes by 2050. This likely will result in an increased incidence of dengue-diabetes comorbidity, and, hence, in severe dengue and dengue-related mortality. Countries that are or will be affected by a high burden for both diabetes and dengue should urgently design strategies to minimize the health and economic impact that a diabetes-dengue comorbidity could have on affected populations.

Figure 1.

Comparison of symptomatic dengue prevalence (as per GBD 2019) and diabetes prevalence (as per GBD 2021) per 100 000 people. (A) compares the estimated prevalence rates of dengue and diabetes in all endemic countries; bubbles represent absolute numbers of predicted dengue cases in 2019, as reported by the GBD 2021. Visualizations and statistical analyses were conducted in R-programming language (R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria; https://www.R-project.org/); specifically, a Pearson's correlation coefficient test was carried out to test for the correlation between the two datasets. (B) illustrates the projected percentage changes in diabetes prevalence by 2050 for the 20 countries with the highest number of predicted dengue cases in 2019, as reported by GBD 2021. GBD: Global Burden of Disease.