Descriptive analysis of surveillance data for Zika virus disease and Zika virus-associated neurological complications in Colombia, 2015-2017
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Zika virus (ZIKV) is a mosquito-borne pathogen that recently caused a major epidemic in the Americas. Although the majority of ZIKV infections are asymptomatic, the virus has been associated with birth defects in fetuses and newborns of infected mothers as well as neurological complications in adults. We performed a descriptive analysis on approximately 106,000 suspected and laboratory-confirmed cases of Zika virus disease (ZVD) that were reported during the 2015–2017 epidemic in Colombia. We also analyzed a dataset containing patients with neurological complications and recent febrile illness compatible with ZVD. Females had higher cumulative incidence of ZVD than males. Compared to the general population, cases were more likely to be reported in young adults (20 to 39 years of age). We estimated the cumulative incidence of ZVD in pregnant females at 3,120 reported cases per 100,000 population (95% CI: 3,077–3,164), which was considerably higher than the incidence in both males and non-pregnant females. ZVD cases were reported in all 32 departments. Four-hundred and eighteen patients suffered from ZIKV-associated neurological complications, of which 85% were diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome. The median age of ZIKV cases with neurological complications was 12 years older than that of ZVD cases. ZIKV-associated neurological complications increased with age, and the highest incidence was reported among individuals aged 75 and older. Even though neurological complications and deaths due to ZIKV were rare in this epidemic, better risk communication is needed for people living in or traveling to ZIKV-affected areas.
Date Issued
2021-06-26
Date Acceptance
2021-05-11
Citation
PLoS One, 2021, 16 (6), pp.1-16
ISSN
1932-6203
Publisher
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Start Page
1
End Page
16
Journal / Book Title
PLoS One
Volume
16
Issue
6
Copyright Statement
© 2021 Charniga 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.
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.
License URL
Sponsor
Medical Research Council (MRC)
Identifier
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0252236
Grant Number
MR/R015600/1
Subjects
General Science & Technology
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2021-06-16