Dengue in the Americas: challenges for prevention and control

Abstract

Dengue is the most important vector-borne disease in the Americas and threatens the lifes of millions of people in developing countries. Imprecise IntroductionDengue is now the most important vector-borne disease in the Americas and threatens the health of millions of people that live in urban, suburban and rural environments. Clinical and public health services have been unable to diminish this disease since there is no vaccine available to prevent infection, no effective medical treatments that avert the development of severe symptoms and no sustainable control measures against the vector that guarantee protection of affected communities.Dengue was initially identified as breakbone fever in 1790 in Philadelphia, U.S.A 1 , and later spread throughout the Americas, until the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) launched an Aedes aegypti eradication campaign to combat yellow fever in the 1950s and 1960s that came close to eliminating the vector from the continent 2 . Although the geographical distribution of the vector is similar to its distribution before the eradication campaigns 3 , populations during the "eradication era" were principally rural. In the last 40 years, there has been intensive urbanization due to massive migration from agricultural areas to cities. Although urbanization in Latin America and the Caribbean had already reached 41% of the population by 1950, the population living in urban areas is expected to reach between 82 and 84% by 2030; by then the Latin America and Caribbean region will be the second most urbanized REVISÃO REVIEW Gómez-Dantés H, Willoquet JR S20 Cad. Saúde Pública, Rio de Janeiro,

Comportamiento de la mortalidad por dengue en Colombia entre 1985 y 2012

“…Por otra parte, la proliferación masiva de productos no reciclables, como plásticos no retornables, envases y neumáticos, condujo a un deterioro del medio ambiente que favoreció el aumento de los criaderos de mosquitos (31).…”

Spatio-temporal and neighborhood characteristics of two dengue outbreaks in two arid cities of Mexico

“…Socioeconomic characteristics of households related to uncontrolled urbanization, migration, deficiencies in water supply and garbage disposal, and vector control activities can play a significant role in the spatio-temporal distribution of dengue virus transmission (Caprara et al, 2009;Gómez-Dantés et al, 2011;Gómez-Dantés and Ramsey, 2009;Martín et al, 2010).…”

Differential replication of dengue virus serotypes 2 and 3 in coinfections of C6/36 cells and Aedes aegypti mosquitoes

“…The development of severe disease forms is associated with multiple factors, some of which are related to the virus and the virulence of some strains, and others that are related to the host immune response [3]. Approximately 96 million cases of dengue infection are reported annually [4], mainly in the tropical and subtropical regions of the Asian [5,6], African [7], and American [8] continents. In other words, approximately half of the global population is at risk for DENV-associated diseases.…”