Estimating the burden of arboviral diseases in Colombia between 2013 and 2016

Abstract

During the 2013-2016 period, Dengue, Chikungunya, and Zika affected more than 1 million people in Colombia. These arboviruses and their chronic manifestations pose a public health challenge. Therefore, we estimated the burden of disease by Dengue, Chikungunya, and Zika in Colombia between 2013 and 2016. Methods: An exploratory ecological study was carried out using the disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) as a unit of measure. The mortality databases of the National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE) and the morbidity databases of the National Public Health Surveillance System (SIVIGILA) were used. Deaths and cases for each arbovirus were grouped and then adjusted to control biases. Subsequently, we performed a sensitivity analysis. Results: In the 2013-2016 period, 491,629.2 DALYs were lost due to arboviruses in Colombia. By disease, 26.6% of the total DALYs were caused by Dengue, 71.3% by Chikungunya, and the remaining 2.2%, by Zika. The majority of DALYs (68.2%) were caused by chronic complications. Five out of 32 departments (Valle del Cauca, Tolima, Norte de Santander, Huila, and Bolívar) contributed 50.5% of total DALYs. Conclusion:The burden of disease by arboviruses in the 2013-2016 period exceeded the burden of other infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis in Colombia. Public health efforts must be made to mitigate new epidemics of these arboviruses.

Serological cross-reactivity using a SARS-CoV-2 ELISA test in acute Zika virus infection, Colombia

“…During the 2013-2016 period, Dengue, Chikungunya, and Zika have affected more than 1 million people in Colombia, and presently, Colombia is considered as an endemic country for these arboviruses (Mora-Salamanca et al, 2020). Colombia is also part of the SARS-CoV-2 ongoing pandemic, with a total of 765,076 confirmed COVID-19 cases as on September 21, 2020 (https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html).…”

Spatio-temporal clusters and patterns of spread of dengue, chikungunya, and Zika in Colombia

“…the one with the strongest evidence of fitting the definition of a cluster, was consistently identified in the south-western region of Colombia, including the Valle del Cauca department and its capital Cali. This region is known for the presence of Aedes-borne diseases, as it has been described in other studies using the SIVIGILA data [29,30,34,56,57]. Between 2013 and 2016, Valle del Cauca was the department most affected by arboviral diseases in Colombia, accounting for 24.2% of the total disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) of the country and its capital city, Cali, contributed 13% of all arbovirus cases reported during the study period [56].…”

“…This region is known for the presence of Aedes-borne diseases, as it has been described in other studies using the SIVIGILA data [29,30,34,56,57]. Between 2013 and 2016, Valle del Cauca was the department most affected by arboviral diseases in Colombia, accounting for 24.2% of the total disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) of the country and its capital city, Cali, contributed 13% of all arbovirus cases reported during the study period [56]. This region presents a favorable environment and suitable climate for the Aedes mosquitoes, with altitude less than 2000 meters above sea level, warm temperatures above 20˚C, relative humidity below 80%, and rainy seasons that are essential to the life cycle of the mosquitoes [34,58,59].…”

Spatio-temporal clusters and patterns of spread of dengue, chikungunya, and Zika in Colombia

“…For the disease-specific analyses and the multivariate analysis, the most likely cluster was consistently identified in the south-western region of Colombia and also presented elevated duration in weeks and relative risk. Between 2013 and 2016, Valle del Cauca was the department (and located in the south-western region) most affected by arboviral diseases in Colombia, accounting for 24.2% of the total disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) of the country [53] and its capital city, Cali, contributed 13% of all arbovirus cases reported during the study period. Previous studies also identified clusters of Aedes -borne diseases in the south-western region of Colombia [29,30].…”