Article
Epidemiology of acute febrile illness in Latin America
Registro en:
MOREIRA, J. et al. Epidemiology of acute febrile illness in Latin America. Clinical Microbiology and Infection, n. 24, p. 827-835, 2018.
1198-743X
10.1016/j.cmi.2018.05.001
Autor
Moreira, J.
Bressan, C. S.
Brasil, P.
Siqueira, A. M.
Resumen
Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-
19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active. Background: The causes of acute febrile illness (AFI) in Latin America are diverse and their complexity increases as the proportion of fever due to malaria decreases, as malaria control measures and new pathogens emerge in the region. In this context, it is important to shed light on the gaps in the epide miological characteristics and the geographic range for many AFI aetiologies. Objectives: To review studies on community-acquired fever aetiology other than malaria in Latin America, and to highlight knowledge gaps and challenges needing further investigation. Sources: PubMed from 2012 to April 2018. Content: We found 17 eligible studies describing 13 539 patients. The median number of pathogens tested per individual was 3.5 (range 2e17). A causative pathogen could be determined for 6661 (49.2%) individuals. The most frequently reported pathogen during the study periods was dengue virus (DENV) (14 studies), followed by chikungunya virus (nine studies) and Zika virus (seven studies). Among the studies reporting concurrent infections, 296 individuals (2.2%) were found to have co-infections. In hospital mortality was reported in eight (47%) studies, ranging between 0% and 18%. Implications: DENV fever is the febrile illness most frequently reported, reflecting its importance, while chikungunya and zika viruses present increasing trends since their emergence in the region. Studies with systematic and harmonized approaches for detection of multiple pathogens are needed and would probably reveal a higher burden of neglected pathogens such as Rickettsia spp. and arenaviruses. The lack of point-of-care tests and harmonized approach limits the care provided by health professionals and the efficacy of surveillance for AFI in the region. 2018