Shifting Geographical Transmission Patterns: Characterizing the 2023 Fatal Dengue Outbreak in Bangladesh

Abstract

In 2023, Bangladesh experienced its largest and deadliest outbreak of Dengue virus (DENV), reporting the highest-ever recorded annual cases and deaths. We aimed to characterize the geographical transmission of the DENV in Bangladesh. From 1 Jan - 31 Dec 2023, we extracted and analyzed daily data on dengue cases and deaths from the national Management Information System (MIS). We performed a generalized linear mixed model to identify the associations between division-wise daily dengue counts and various geographical and meteorological covariates. The number of Dengue cases reported in 2023 was 1.3 times higher than the total number recorded in the past 23 years (321,179 vs. 244,246), with twice as many deaths than the total fatalities recorded in the past 23 years (1705 vs. 849). Of the 1705 deaths in 2023, 67.4% (n=1015) expired within one day after hospital admission. The divisions southern to Dhaka had a higher dengue incidence/1000 population (2.30 vs. 0.50, p<0,0.01), and higher mean annual temperatures (27.46 vs. 26.54 °C) than the northern divisions. The average daily temperature (IRR: 1.13, 95% CI: 1.11-1.14), urban and rural population ratio of the divisions (IRR: 1.04, 95% CI: 1.03-1.04), showed a positive, and rainfall (IRR: 0.99, 95% CI: 0.98-0.99) showed a negative association with dengue cases in each division. We observed a major geographical shift of Dengue cases from the capital city Dhaka to different districts of Bangladesh with a higher incidence of dengue in the southern division of Bangladesh, influenced by temperature and urbanization.