The economic burden of dengue: no longer invisible or unavoidable

Abstract

In the Lancet Infectious Diseases, Donald Shepard and colleagues 1 Shepard DS Undurraga EA Halasa YA Stanaway JD The global economic burden of dengue: a systematic analysis. Lancet Infect Dis. 2016; (published online April 15.)http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(16)00146-8 Google Scholar estimate the global economic burden of dengue, the world's most common arbovirus infection. Their report is well timed. Both the incidence and the geographic range of dengue transmission have expanded rapidly over the past three decades as a result of urbanisation, population growth, climate change, and international travel. Shepard and colleagues build on estimates from the Global Burden of Disease study, 2 Stanaway JD Shepard DS Undurraga EA et al. The global burden of dengue: an analysis from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013. Lancet Infect Dis. 2016; (published online Feb 10.)http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(16)00026-8 Google Scholar which suggest that there are now almost 60 million symptomatic dengue cases a year. Estimates from other groups put this number as high as 100 million. 3 Bhatt S Gething PW Brady OJ et al. The global distribution and burden of dengue. Nature. 2013; 496: 504-507 Crossref PubMed Scopus (5724) Google Scholar The global economic burden of dengue: a systematic analysisThe global cost of dengue is substantial and, if control strategies could reduce dengue appreciably, billions of dollars could be saved globally. In estimating dengue costs by country and setting, this study contributes to the needs of policy makers, donors, developers, and researchers for economic assessments of dengue interventions, particularly with the licensure of the first dengue vaccine and promising developments in other technologies. Full-Text PDF