Análise da situação epidemiológica da dengue no Estado do Rio Grande do Norte, Brasil, no período de 2016 a 2020

Abstract

Dengue is an acute febrile and systemic disease that can present a wide clinical spectrum, ranging from asymptomatic cases to severe, potentially fatal forms. It is an arbovirus transmitted mainly by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, and is one of the most important health problems worldwide, causing annual epidemics mainly in tropical and subtropical regions, putting at risk almost a third of the world's population. This paper presents a descriptive study of a time series and spatial distribution of probable cases of dengue fever reported in the state of Rio Grande do Norte. Secondary data of notification of the disease in the period from 2016 to 2020, available in the Information System of Notifiable Diseases and Epidemiological Bulletins of the State Department of Health, in the referred period, were used. Data analysis was performed from descriptive statistics. During the time series, a total of 127,152 probable cases of dengue were reported, and 38,051 cases of the disease were confirmed, representing 29.92% of this total. Dengue virus serotype - 1 (DENV-1) was the most prevalent in the entire series studied. Health region 7ª, which corresponds to the Metropolitan region of Natal, had the highest number of confirmed cases, totaling 17,654, which represents approximately 46.36% of the number of confirmed cases in the state. Regarding the sociodemographic characterization, it was found a higher prevalence of the disease in females and that the most affected age group is between 20 and 39 years. During this period, dengue fever showed an epidemiological behavior that characterizes an endemic profile, with some peaks of incidence in certain periods. This epidemiological profile of the disease is possibly correlated with fluctuations in the number of susceptible individuals and variations in the population density of the vectors that transmit the virus. Our data show an apparent reduction in the number of probable dengue cases reported in the year 2020. It is possible that this reduction in the number of cases of the disease was due to underreporting, since all the efforts of the health services were focused on coping with the current Coronavirus pandemic (SARS-COV2).