Global risk of dengue outbreaks and the impact of El Niño events

Dengue fever is an arboviral disease caused by the dengue virus (DENV). Its geographical distribution and health burden have been steadily increasing through tropical and subtropical climates in recent decades.

We developed a temperature- and precipitation-dependent mechanistic model for the global risk of dengue fever outbreaks using the basic reproduction number (R₀) as the metric of disease transmission risk. We used our model to evaluate the global risk of dengue outbreaks from 1950 to 2020 and to investigate the impact of annual seasons and El Niño events.

We showed that the global annual risk of dengue outbreaks has steadily increased during the last four decades. Highest R₀ values were observed in South America, Southeast Asia, and the Equatorial region of Africa year-round with large seasonal variations occurring in other regions. El Niño was shown to be positively correlated with the global risk of dengue outbreaks with a correlation of 0.52. However, the impact of El Niño on dengue R₀ was shown to vary across geographical regions and between El Niño events.

Strong El Niño events may increase the risk of dengue outbreaks across the globe. The onset of these events may trigger a surge of control efforts to minimize risk of dengue outbreaks.