Spatiotemporal dynamics of dengue emergence in the city of Reconquista (Santa Fe, Argentina) and its relationship with meteorological and social variables

RODRIGUEZ, SANTIAGO; LOPEZ MARÍA SOLEDAD; RADOSEVICH, AINELEN; GÓMEZ, ANDREA A.; ESTALLO, ELIZABET L.

Congreso; II Congress of the Latin American Society for Vector Ecology; 2022

Dengue fever is an important zoonotic disease in inter-tropical areas worldwide. In the pastdecades, the dengue virus (DEN) has spread into sub-tropical and temperate regions, withgreater incidence and increasingly frequent epidemic outbreaks. In Argentina, DEN is anepidemic disease initiated by imported cases from countries where viral circulation ispermanent. Santa Fe is a province in central Argentina where dengue outbreaks have beenrecorded since 2009, and the city of Reconquista has been the most affected since then. Thebiological characteristics of both the vector and the virus depend on the climate and theenvironment, which can therefore impact the number of registered cases at a given placeand time. The aim of this paper is to begin evaluating possible relationships between thedengue cases that occurred in 2020 during the major epidemic in Reconquista and climateand social variables. The analysis is made using time series of the number of cases perepidemiological week (EW) in the 2019‒2020 season, as well as the anomalies in minimum,maximum, and mean temperatures and total precipitation. The anomalies were calculated asthe difference between the values of each EW in the 2019‒2020 season relative to thereference period 1998-2019. Moreover, a count was made of the number of days withextreme temperatures above the 90th percentile (P90) and extreme precipitation above the95th percentile (P95) in the EW with recorded cases, as well as in the four preceding andfollowing weeks (with respect to the reference period 1998‒2019). Finally, the incidence byneighborhood was calculated and related to the coverage of the sewer and drinking watersupply networks, with no relationship identified. Dengue incidence was low to medium inmost neighborhoods (76%) and high and very high in the rest (24%). The dengue casesoccurred during the weeks with positive anomalies in minimum, maximum, and meantemperatures. Strong positive precipitation anomalies were observed in the weeks whencases began to appear. During the EW analyzed, 19, 33, and 21 days with minimum,maximum, and mean extreme temperatures, respectively, were identified. There are norecords of extreme precipitation in the period under study. This paper is the first-everspatiotemporal analysis of dengue fever incidence in the city of Reconquista, and sets thefoundations for outlining public policies and actions for dengue fever prevention at the locallevel. The need has been identified for standardized and long-lasting epidemiological,meteorological, and social databases.