6 research outputs found
From Re-Emergence to Hyperendemicity: The Natural History of the Dengue Epidemic in Brazil
The spread of dengue virus is a major public health problem. Though the burden of dengue has historically been concentrated in Southeast Asian countries, Brazil has become the country that reports the largest number of cases in the world. While prior to 2007 the disease affected mostly adults, during the 2007 epidemic the number of dengue hemorrhagic fever cases more than doubled, and over 53% of cases were in children under 15 years of age. In this paper, we propose that the conditions for the shift were being set gradually since the re-introduction of dengue in 1986 and that they represent the transition from re-emergence to hyperendemicity. Using data from an age stratified seroprevalence study conducted in Recife, we estimated the force of infection (a measure of transmission intensity) between 1986â2006 and used these estimates to simulate the accumulation of immunity since the re-emergence. As the length of time that dengue has circulated increases, adults have a lower probability of remaining susceptible to primary or secondary infection and thus, cases become on average younger. If in fact the shift represents the transition from re-emergence to hyperendemicity, similar shifts are likely to be observed in the rest of Brazil, the American continent and other regions where transmission emerges
Towards a âSea-Level Sensitiveâ dynamic model: impact of island ontogeny and glacioâeustasy on global patterns of marine island biogeography
A synthetic model is presented to enlarge the evolutionary framework of the General Dynamic Model (GDM) and the Glacial Sensitive Model (GSM) of oceanic island biogeography from the terrestrial to the marine realm. The proposed âSeaâLevel Sensitiveâ dynamic model (SLS) of marine island biogeography integrates historical and ecological biogeography with patterns of glacioâeustasy, merging concepts from areas as diverse as taxonomy, biogeography, marine biology, volcanology, sedimentology, stratigraphy, palaeontology, geochronology and geomorphology. Fundamental to the SLS model is the dynamic variation of the littoral area of volcanic oceanic islands (defined as the area between the intertidal and the 50âm isobath) in response to seaâlevel oscillations driven by glacialâinterglacial cycles. The following questions are considered by means of this revision: (i) what was the impact of (global) glacioâeustatic seaâlevel oscillations, particularly those of the Pleistocene glacialâinterglacial episodes, on the littoral marine fauna and flora of volcanic oceanic islands? (ii) What are the main factors that explain the present littoral marine biodiversity on volcanic oceanic islands? (iii) How can differences in historical and ecological biogeography be reconciled, from a marine point of view? These questions are addressed by compiling the bathymetry of 11 Atlantic archipelagos/islands to obtain quantitative data regarding changes in the littoral area based on Pleistocene seaâlevel oscillations, from 150 thousand years ago (ka) to the present. Within the framework of a model sensitive to changing sea levels, we discuss the principal factors affecting the geographical range of marine species; the relationships between modes of larval development, dispersal strategies and geographical range; the relationships between times of speciation, modes of larval development, ecological zonation and geographical range; the influence of seaâsurface temperatures and latitude on littoral marine species diversity; the effect of eustatic seaâlevel changes and their impact on the littoral marine biota; island marine speciesâarea relationships; and finally, the physical effects of island ontogeny and its associated submarine topography and marine substrate on littoral biota. Based on the SLS dynamic model, we offer a number of predictions for tropical, subtropical and temperate volcanic oceanic islands on how rates of immigration, colonization, inâsitu speciation, local disappearance, and extinction interact and affect the marine biodiversity around islands during glacials and interglacials, thus allowing future testing of the theory