Fulltext

Attrition in serum anti-DENV antibodies correlates with high anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG levels and low DENV positivity in mosquito vectors-Findings from a state-wide cluster-randomized community-based study in Tamil Nadu, India

Selvavinayagam ST 1 , Sankar S 2 , Yong YK 3 , Anshad AR 4 , Chandramathi S 5 , Somasundaram A 6 Show all authors , Palani S 1 , Kumarasamy P 1 , Azhaguvel R 1 , Kumar AB 1 , Subramaniam S 6 , Malathi M 7 , Vijayalakshmi V 7 , Rajeshkumar M 1 , Kumaresan A 1 , Pandey RP 8 , Muruganandam N 9 , Gopalan N 10 , Kannan M 11 , Murugesan A 12 , Balakrishnan P 13 , Byrareddy SN 14 , Dash AP 15 , Velu V 16 , Larsson M 17 , Shankar EM 4 , Raju S 1

Affiliations 

  • 1 State Public Health Laboratory, Directorate of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, DMS Campus, Teynampet, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
  • 2 Department of Microbiology, Saveetha Dental College and Hospitals, Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences, Centre for Infectious Diseases, Saveetha University, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
  • 3 Laboratory Centre, Xiamen University Malaysia, Sepang, Selangor, Malaysia
  • 4 Department of Biotechnology, Infection and Inflammation, Central University of Tamil Nadu, Thiruvarur, India
  • 5 Faculty of Medicine, Department of Medical Microbiology, University of Malaya, Lembah Pantai, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
  • 6 Institute of Community Medicine, Madras Medical College, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
  • 7 Institute of Vector Control and Zoonoses, Hosur, Tamil Nadu, India
  • 8 School of Health Sciences and Technology, UPES, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India
  • 9 Regional Medical Research Centre, Indian Council of Medical Research, Port Blair, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India
  • 10 Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Central University of Tamil Nadu, Thiruvarur, India
  • 11 Department of Biotechnology, Blood and Vascular Biology, Central University of Tamil Nadu, Thiruvarur, India
  • 12 Department of Microbiology, Government Theni Medical College and Hospital, Theni, Tamil Nadu, India
  • 13 Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences, Center for Infectious Diseases, Saveetha Medical College and Hospital, Saveetha University, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
  • 14 Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Neuroscience, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, Nebraska, United States of America
  • 15 Asian Institute of Public Health University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India
  • 16 Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Division of Microbiology and Immunology, Emory University School of Medicine, Emory National Primate Research Center, Emory Vaccine Center, Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America
  • 17 Department of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences, Division of Molecular Medicine and Virology, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden
PLOS Glob Public Health, 2024;4(11):e0003608.
PMID: 39570962 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgph.0003608

Abstract

The decline in dengue incidence and/or prevalence during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-22) appears to be attributed to reduced treatment-seeking rates, under-reporting, misdiagnosis, disrupted health services and reduced exposure to mosquito vectors due to prevailing lockdowns. There is limited scientific data on dengue virus (DENV) disease during the COVID-19 pandemic. Here, we conducted a community-based, cross-sectional, cluster-randomized survey to assess anti-DENV and anti-SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence, and also estimated the spatial distribution of DENV-positive aedine mosquito vectors during the COVID-19 pandemic across all the 38 districts of Tamil Nadu, India. Using real-time PCR, the prevalence of DENV in mosquito pools during 2021 was analyzed and compared with the previous and following years of vector surveillance, and correlated with anti-DENV IgM and IgG levels in the population. Results implicate that both anti-DENV IgM and IgG seroprevalence and DENV positivity in mosquito pools were reduced across all the districts. A total of 13464 mosquito pools and 5577 human serum samples from 186 clusters were collected. Of these, 3.76% of the mosquito pools were positive for DENV. In the human sera, 4.12% were positive for anti-DENV IgM and 6.4% for anti-DENV IgG. While the anti-SARS-CoV-2 levels significantly correlated with overall DENV seropositivity, COVID-19 vaccination status significantly correlated with anti-DENV IgM levels. The study indicates a profound impact of anti-SARS-CoV-2 levels on DENV-positive mosquito pools and seropositivity. Continuous monitoring of anti-DENV antibody levels, especially with the evolving variants of SARS-CoV-2 and the surge in COVID-19 cases will shed light on the distribution, transmission and therapeutic attributes of DENV infection.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

Similar publications