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Inverse Correlation between Dengue Fever and COVID-19 spread in Latin America, the Caribbean and Asia

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May 17, 2021 version files 309.74 MB

Abstract

Here we investigated whether the dengue fever pandemic of 2019-2020 may have influenced COVID-19 incidence and spread around the world. In Brazil, the geographic distribution of dengue fever was highly complementary to that of COVID-19. This was accompanied by an inverse correlation between COVID-19 and dengue fever incidence that could not be explained by socioeconomic factors. This inverse correlation was observed for 5,016 Brazilian municipalities reporting COVID-19 cases, 558 micro- and 137 meso-regions, 27 states and 5 regions. Brazilian states with high population levels of dengue IgM in 2020 exhibited: (i) lower COVID-19 case and death incidence, (ii) slower infection growth rates, and (iii) took longer to accumulate COVID-19 cases. No such inverse correlations were observed for the chikungunya virus, which is also transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito. The same inverse correlation between COVID-19 and dengue fever incidence was observed for 145 locations (66 countries and the 64 states of Mexico and Colombia) in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia. Countries with high dengue incidence took longer to accumulate COVID-19 cases than those without dengue. Although the dataset considered has quality and availability limitations, these findings raise the possibility of an immunological cross-reaction between dengue virus serotypes and SARS-CoV-2, which could have led to partial immunological protection for COVID-19 in dengue infected communities. However, further studies are necessary to better test this hypothesis.