The looming threat of dengue fever: the Africa context
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
In Africa, compared to 2019, dengue infections have surged ninefold by December 2023, with over 270 000 cases and 753 deaths reported across 18 African Union (AU) Member States. This commentary synthesises the context of dengue outbreaks in Africa and provides recommendations for sustainable control. In 2023, 18 African Union Member States reported outbreaks of dengue, among which seven had ongoing armed conflicts. These countries were amongst the top 15 African countries contributing to the most displaced persons on the continent and accounted for 98% of all dengue cases reported in the continent in 2023. Climate change remains an important driver, both through the displacement of people and global warming. The continent continues to face several challenges in detection, reporting and management, such as the lack of local laboratory capacity, misclassification of dengue cases and lack of medical countermeasures. Solutions targeting the strengthening of cross-border surveillance and early warning systems using a multisectoral one-health approach, local research and development for therapeutics and diagnostics and community engagement empowering communities to protect themselves and understand the gravity of the threat could help curb the spread of the disease in Africa.
Date Issued
2024-07-01
Date Acceptance
2024-06-26
Citation
Open Forum Infectious Diseases, 2024, 11 (7)
ISSN
2328-8957
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Journal / Book Title
Open Forum Infectious Diseases
Volume
11
Issue
7
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Infectious Diseases Society of America. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial reproduction and distribution of the work, in any medium, provided the original work is not altered or transformed in any way, and that the work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact reprints@oup.com for reprints and translation rights for reprints. All other permissions can be obtained through our RightsLink service via the Permissions link on the article page on our site— for further information please contact journals.permission s@oup.com.
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/38994441
PII: ofae362
Subjects
Africa
climate change
Dengue
humanitarian crises
Immunology
Infectious Diseases
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Microbiology
Science & Technology
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
United States
Article Number
ofae362
Date Publish Online
2024-06-28