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

RODRIGUEZ, SANTIAGO T; LÓPEZ MARÍA SOLEDAD; RADOSEVICH, AINELEN; GÓMEZ, ANDREA; ESTALLO E.L.

La Plata

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

SOVE

Dengue fever is an important zoonotic disease in inter-tropical areas worldwide. In the past decades, the dengue virus (DEN) has spread into sub-tropical and temperate regions, with greater incidence and increasingly frequent epidemic outbreaks. In Argentina, DEN is an epidemic disease initiated by imported cases from countries where viral circulation is permanent. Santa Fe is a province in central Argentina where dengue outbreaks have been recorded since 2009, and the city of Reconquista has been the most affected since then. The biological characteristics of both the vector and the virus depend on the climate and the environment, which can therefore impact the number of registered cases at a given place and time. The aim of this paper is to begin evaluating possible relationships between the dengue cases that occurred in 2020 during the major epidemic in Reconquista and climate and social variables. The analysis is made using time series of the number of cases per epidemiological 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 as the difference between the values of each EW in the 2019‒2020 season relative to the reference period 1998-2019. Moreover, a count was made of the number of days with extreme temperatures above the 90th percentile (P90) and extreme precipitation above the 95th percentile (P95) in the EW with recorded cases, as well as in the four preceding and following weeks (with respect to the reference period 1998‒2019). Finally, the incidence by neighborhood was calculated and related to the coverage of the sewer and drinking water supply networks, with no relationship identified. Dengue incidence was low to medium in most neighborhoods (76%) and high and very high in the rest (24%). The dengue cases occurred during the weeks with positive anomalies in minimum, maximum, and mean temperatures. Strong positive precipitation anomalies were observed in the weeks when cases began to appear. During the EW analyzed, 19, 33, and 21 days with minimum, maximum, and mean extreme temperatures, respectively, were identified. There are no records of extreme precipitation in the period under study. This paper is the first-ever spatiotemporal analysis of dengue fever incidence in the city of Reconquista, and sets the foundations for outlining public policies and actions for dengue fever prevention at the local level. The need has been identified for standardized and long-lasting epidemiological, meteorological, and social databases