Max Willian Lisboa Gomes1,2 Caroline de Souza Barros2 Rafaela dos S P Gomes1,2 Raphael Paes Pinto2 Claudio Cesar CirneSantos1 Izabel Christina Palmer Paixão1*
1Laboratório de Virologia Molecular e Biotecnologia, Departamento de Biologia Celular e Molecular, Instituto de Biologia, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Niterói, RJ, Brasil*Corresponding author: Izabel Christina Palmer Paixão, Laboratório de Virologia Molecular e Biotecnologia, Departamento de Biologia Celular e Molecular, Instituto de Biologia, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Niterói, 24020-14, RJ, Brasil, E-mail: izabeluff@gmail.com
The pandemic related to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, caused severe impacts in many important sectors for health and the entire society. We can observe that curiously the number of notifications related to Arboviruses ended up decreasing as the notification related to COVID-19 increased [1]. Currently, we live in a paradigm where globalization itself offers factors for the incidence of Arboviruses. We can consider environmental, socioeconomic factors and, above all, climate change imposed by urbanization and also by the exacerbated consumption of natural resources. Arboviruses are diseases transmitted by the bite of hematophagous arthropods and although many of them present different forms of horizontal transmission and in most cases, present symptoms of a common nature, such as headaches, skin patches, arthralgias, myalgias, in addition to the encephalitogenic potential that these viruses usually present [2]. All these points mentioned are strong factors that contribute to the re-emergence of diseases [3]. One of the most important factors for the increase in the proliferation of arthropod vectors is precisely the tropical position where Brazil is located, with the hot climate and the high amount of rain, it offers favorable reservoirs for these mosquitoes to lay their eggs and carry out their growth and development. We can also point out the socioeconomic factors related to social inequality observed in the country, where economically disadvantaged populations often face problems of basic sanitation and especially of housing close to reservoirs where mosquitoes inhabit and develop, thus increasing the incidence of these diseases [4].
Arboviruses are a public health problem in the country, precisely because we do not have effective antiviral drugs against these diseases and also because of their similar symptoms in the acute phase of the infection, which highlights the difficulty in the clinical management of diseases and their notification [5].
Dengue is currently occasionally the most relevant arbovirus in the world, being a virus of the Flaviridae family, and in 2019, according to the Ministry of Health, 1,544,987 cases were reported up to the epidemiological week (SE) 52. What still configures a large number of cases of the disease. Following the line of Arboviruses of clinical importance, we also have the Zika Virus (ZIKV), which had a number of notified cases of 10,768, up to SE 52, a very small number when compared to dengue, even though it is also a virus that perpetuates the infection through the same arthropod vector. The Chikungunya Virus (CHIKV), from the Togaviridae family and which is capable of promoting strong joint complications had a number of 132,205 probable cases, according to the Ministry of Health, in 2019 [6].
What happens directly with Arboviruses is a reflection of an ecological crisis and especially of socio-environmental conflicts. We can clearly see a reflection associated with climate change, the lack of basic sanitation and also a whole context aimed at social inequality and in the health, services offered to the population. We can also point out the lack of health education services for the prevention and control of Arboviruses [7].
However, there is a curious question about the number of cases of Arboviruses in the years 2019 compared to 2020, a year concomitant with the COVID-19 pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2, the new coronavirus. A significant reduction in the number of reported cases of these diseases was observed (Table 1).
| 2019 | 2020 | |
| Dengue | 1.554.123 | 968.939 |
| Chikungunya | 178.147 | 100.189 |
| Zika | 30.500 | 19.300 |
Table 1: Number of probable cases of Dengue, Chikungunya and Zika in Brazil in 2019 and 2020, source: DATASUS-Ministry of Health of Brazil.
With the onset of the pandemic, measures were taken related to “lockdown” and social isolation to somehow try to control the transmission of the virus, but we also observed the social and economic imbalance caused by a policy not prepared to provide the population with basic alternatives to an unusual setting [8].
However, assuming that the housing conditions of economically disadvantaged people are factors that lead to an increase in the number of Arboviruses cases, it is quite curious to observe numbers such as those presented in figure 1. The number may be lower due to the fact the sanitary and socioeconomic crisis observed in the pandemic, in addition to the high occupancy rate of hospital beds destined for COVID-19 [9].
Figure 1: Graphic illustration showing the number of probable cases of Zika, Dengue and Chikungunya in the years 2019 and 2020. The X-axis represents millions of cases and the Y-axis represents years. *1e6=1.000.000 of probable cases. The software used was the Python Software®.
The cases referred to in table 2 are seen going in the opposite direction to the cases of Arboviruses which, instead of increasing, ended up decreasing. Logically, we cannot compare the transmissibility of COVID-19 with Arboviruses, however, the ineffective notification of Arboviruses can end up interfering with disease prevention and control strategies.
| 2020/2021 | |
| COVID-19 | 6.880.127/21.459.117 |
Table 2: Number of Probable Cases of COVID-19 in Brazil, source: DATASUS-Ministry of Health.
The COVID-19 pandemic scenario in Brazil is causing huge gaps in health services, economic impacts and social circumstances in all spectrums of society. The reflection of a policy of late and initially ineffective actions meant that even within the notifications involving Arboviruses, problems with the characterization of these diseases were observed.
The hypothesis that the scope of notifications may not have been broad enough to understand even the people who are most affected by the unequal policy and by the health service that failed to reach and catalog all cases of Arboviruses that only fit each time more in the context of neglected diseases.
The author(s) declare that there are no conflicts of interest.
This work received no specific grant from any funding agency.
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Article Type: OPINION ARTICLE
Citation: Gomes MWL, de Souza Barros C, Gomes RDSP, Pinto RP, Cirne-Santos CC, et al. (2022) The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Reports Involving Arboviruses. J Epidemiol Public Health Rev 7(2): dx.doi.org/10.16966/2471-8211.223
Copyright: © 2022 Gomes MWL, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
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