Spatio-temporal coherence of dengue, chikungunya and Zika outbreaks in Merida, Mexico.

• Published in: PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases
• Main Authors: Donal Bisanzio, Felipe Dzul-Manzanilla, Hector Gomez-Dantés, Norma Pavia-Ruz, Thomas J Hladish, Audrey Lenhart, Jorge Palacio-Vargas, Jesus F González Roldan, Fabian Correa-Morales, Gustavo Sánchez-Tejeda, Pablo Kuri Morales, Pablo Manrique-Saide, Ira M Longini, M Elizabeth Halloran, Gonzalo M Vazquez-Prokopec
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2018
• Subjects: Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine; RC955-962; Public aspects of medicine; RA1-1270; Arctic; Kendall
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0006298; https://doaj.org/article/8ccc2d0c95ae47d3acdf8c458e85108f

Response to Zika virus (ZIKV) invasion in Brazil lagged a year from its estimated February 2014 introduction, and was triggered by the occurrence of severe congenital malformations. Dengue (DENV) and chikungunya (CHIKV) invasions tend to show similar response lags. We analyzed geo-coded symptomatic case reports from the city of Merida, Mexico, with the goal of assessing the utility of historical DENV data to infer CHIKV and ZIKV introduction and propagation. About 42% of the 40,028 DENV cases reported during 2008-2015 clustered in 27% of the city, and these clustering areas were where the first CHIKV and ZIKV cases were reported in 2015 and 2016, respectively. Furthermore, the three viruses had significant agreement in their spatio-temporal distribution (Kendall W>0.63; p<0.01). Longitudinal DENV data generated patterns indicative of the resulting introduction and transmission patterns of CHIKV and ZIKV, leading to important insights for the surveillance and targeted control to emerging Aedes-borne viruses.