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Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has rapidly spread throughout Latin America, a region swept by multiple previous and ongoing epidemics. There are significant concerns that the arrival of COVID-19 is currently overlapping with other viruses, particularly dengue, in various endo-epidemic regions across South America. In this report, we analyzed trends for both viral infections in Colombia during the first 20 epidemiological weeks (EWs) of 2020. From 1st January to 16th May 2020 (EWs, 1-20), a total of 52 679 cases of dengue and 14 943 cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed in Colombia. As both conditions may potentially lead to fatal outcomes, especially in patients with chronic co-morbidities, overlapping infections, and co-occurrence may increase the number of patients requiring intensive care and mechanical ventilation. In regions, such as Valle del Cauca, intensified preparation for such scenarios should be pondered, and further studies should be performed to address this critical issue in a timely matter., (© 2020 Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Background: Determining the disease and economic burden of dengue is critical for the allocation of public health resources. Several studies have used disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) to estimate the disease burden of dengue in different regions. However, there are no published studies discussing the estimates of dengue-related economic and disease burden specifically in Taiwan., Objectives: We assessed the economic cost and disease burden of dengue infections in Taiwan for the period 1998-2014, and compared these during epidemic and non-epidemic years., Methods: We estimated the annual DALYs per million population using the disability weights for dengue fever (DF), dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF), dengue shock syndrome (DSS), and death cases. Economic costs were estimated and divided into direct (medical costs) and indirect costs (lost work days and caregiver fees)., Results: For the period 1998-2014, a mean of 115.3 (range: 6.3-934.3) DALYs per million population annually were lost to dengue. In epidemic years, direct costs associated with dengue resulted mostly from hospitalization (86.09%), emergency (7.77%), outpatient (6.10%), and drug costs (0.03%). For indirect costs, lost productivity due to death (70.76%) was the dominant contributor. Overall, the costs were 12.3 times higher in epidemic years than in non-epidemic years (Wilcoxon rank sum test, p<0.05)., Conclusions: This study is the first to evaluate the economic costs and disease burden of dengue infections for this period in Taiwan, and reveals significant differences in economic impact between epidemic and non-epidemic years., (Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

AbstractSwat, a lush green valley of 1.3 million persons, remained under militant insurgency from 2007 to 2009, which damaged the health infrastructure. An outbreak of dengue fever (DF) was declared in the valley in 2013. To investigate this outbreak, we established active surveillance of national hospitals and private clinics, reviewed available clinical and laboratory records, and conducted entomological survey. From August to November 2013, 16,000 suspected patients with acute febrile illness were presented to health facilities. Among those, 9,036 were confirmed positive for DF by clinical manifestation and presence of nonstructural protein 1-soluble antigen. Of 9,036 patients, majority were men and aged 21-40. The epidemic peaked in September 2013 ( N = 6,487). The attack rate was 7.18/1,000 populations. Among the confirmed case-patients, 36 deaths were reported, and proportion of mortality was 0.4%. Each year, increase in age was significantly associated with risk of complication due to DF leading to death ( P < 0.001).

The aim of this study was to investigate excess mortality from dengue in Greater Metropolitan Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, during an epidemic in 2007-2008. A Poisson dynamic model was tested to predict the number of deaths during these epidemic years. Inference was conducted with a Bayesian approach. Excess mortality was detected in March 2008 in children < 15 years. In addition, the highest number of reported dengue cases in Rio de Janeiro was in March and April 2008. Since the increase in mortality should be preceded by an increase in morbidity, one can hypothesize that there was excess mortality from dengue in children during the epidemic in Greater Metropolitan Rio de Janeiro in March 2008.

During the late summers of 1927 and 1928, a biphasic dengue epidemic affected the Athens, Greece, metropolitan area; >90% of the population became sick, and >1,000 persons (1,553 in the entire country) died. This epidemic was the most recent and most serious dengue fever epidemic in Europe. Review of all articles published by one of the most influential Greek daily newspapers (I Kathimerini) during the epidemic and the years that followed it did not shed light on the controversy about whether the high number of deaths resulted from dengue hemorrhagic fever after sequential infections with dengue virus types 1 and 2 or to a particularly virulent type 1 virus. Nevertheless, study of the old reports is crucial considering the relatively recent introduction of Aedes albopictus mosquitoes and the frequent warnings of a possible reemergence of dengue fever in Europe.

Dengue epidemics in Cuba have repeatedly demonstrated a month-to-month increase in clinical severity during secondary infections. The dengue 2 outbreak that occurred in Santiago de Cuba in 1997 was accompanied by the most severe intraepidemic increase in disease severity reported to date. It was initially proposed that the appearance of neutralization escape mutants during the course of the epidemic might explain this phenomenon. Recent studies have revealed that during the course of this epidemic, nucleotide substitutions appeared only in nonstructural (NS) genes, most of which were silent, except for one change in the NS1 gene. To study whether or not variation in the NS1 gene might be associated with increased disease severity during the epidemic, this gene was partially sequenced from 15 isolates obtained at different times during the 1997 epidemic. Early epidemic isolates differed from those obtained later by replacement only of threonine with serine at position 164 in the NS1 protein, an amino acid rarely found in any genotype of dengue 2 virus. All viruses isolated from patients located in Health Districts, where dengue 2 transmissions occurred late in the epidemic, contained Serine at position 164, indicating that this change was fixed within a few months. Here we argue that this single mutation contributes to viral survival or replication efficiency, resulting in enhanced infection in the presence of enhancing antibodies, a phenomenon that we term increased virus "fitness" in contrast to "virulence," an intrinsic property of the virus.