Dengue virus infection in people residing in Africa: a systematic review and meta-analysis of prevalence studies

Abstract

Better knowledge of the face of the current dengue virus (DENV) epidemiology in Africa can help to implement efficient strategies to curb the burden of dengue fever. We conducted this systematic review and meta-analysis to determine the prevalence of DENV infection in Africa. We searched PubMed, EMBASE, African Journals Online, and Africa Index Medicus from January 1st, 2000 to June 10th, 2019 without any language restriction. We used a random-effects model to pool studies. A total of 76 studies (80,977 participants; 24 countries) were included. No study had high risk of bias. Twenty-two (29%) had moderate and 54 (71%) had low risk of bias. In apparently healthy individuals, the pooled prevalence of DENV was 15.6% (95% confidence interval 9.9–22.2), 3.5% (0.8–7.8), and 0.0% (0.0–0.5) respectively for immunoglobulins (Ig) G, IgM, and for ribonucleic acid (RNA) in apparently healthy populations. In populations presenting with fever, the prevalence was 24.8% (13.8–37.8), 10.8% (3.8–20.6k) and 8.4% (3.7–14.4) for IgG, IgM, and for RNA respectively. There was heterogeneity in the distribution between different regions of Africa. The prevalence of DENV infection is high in the African continent. Dengue fever therefore deserves more attention from healthcare workers, researchers, and health policy makers.

Present and future climatic suitability for dengue fever in Africa

“…aegypti in relation to dengue fever incidence in Africa. Similarly, other studies also found that in areas with higher temperatures the rate of larval development will increase, which can boost mosquito populations, and increase the probability of eggs being hatched, and thereby increase the dengue fever incidence risk [3,4,6,8,17,19,20,28,39]. At high temperature, the feeding behaviour of the mosquito is also expected to increase, further increasing dengue fever incidence risk [6].…”

“…aegypti were retrieved from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF; www.gbif.org/), VectorMap and scientific publications [3]. Continental sites or areas where dengue was reported were extracted from Simo et al [3] and Messina et al [4]. Several studies only use vector data, i.e.…”

“…The disease is the foremost cause of illness and mortality, mainly in endemic areas [1]. Recent literatures suggested that around 3.9 billion people are under risk of dengue fever, with about 390 million infections per year, resulting in over 100 million symptomatic cases, and 10,000 deaths [2][3][4]. The disease burden has increased 30-times over the past five decades [5,6], and the number of endemic countries for the disease increased from 9 to 125 over the last four decades [5].…”

“…The life cycle of Ae. aegypti is directly influenced by climate changes [ 3 , 14 – 16 ]. Increased temperature can increase the dengue fever epidemic by increasing availability of habitat suitable for mosquito development and by decreasing the virus incubation time, and thereby increasing the transmission rate [ 2 , 4 , 17 , 18 ].…”

Evaluation of human-baited double net trap and human-odour-baited CDC light trap for outdoor host-seeking malaria vector surveillance in Kenya and Ethiopia

“…Last but not the least, conducting HLC raises ethical concerns associated with an increased risk of participants' exposure to infectious mosquito bites if an appropriate anti-malarial chemoprophylaxis is not taken [4,10,16]. The increasing risk of arboviral infections further compounds its limitations [17]. Hence, it may not be practical to deploy HLC for routine malaria vector surveillance.…”