Department of Infectious, Respiratory, and Digestive Medicine, University of the Ryukyus, Nishihsara, Japan.
Department of Pathological Diagnosis, University of the Ryukyus Hospital, Nishihara, Japan.
PLoS One. 2023 May 25;18(5):e0285107. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0285107. eCollection 2023.
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic not only encouraged people to practice good hygiene but also caused behavioral inhibitions and resulted reduction in both endemic and imported infectious diseases. However, the changing patterns of vector-borne diseases under human mobility restrictions remain unclear. Hence, we aimed to investigate the impact of transborder and local mobility restrictions on vector-borne diseases through a descriptive epidemiological study. The analysis was conducted using data from the National Epidemiological Surveillance of Infectious Diseases system in Japan. We defined the pre-pandemic period as the period between the 1st week of 2016 to the 52nd week of 2019 and defined the pandemic period as from the 1st week of 2020 to the 52nd week of 2021, with the assumption that human mobility was limited throughout the pandemic period. This study addressed 24 diseases among notifiable vector borne diseases. Datasets were obtained from weekly reports from the National Epidemiological Surveillance of Infectious Diseases, and the incidence of each vector-borne disease was examined. Interrupted time series analysis was conducted on the epidemic curves for the two periods. Between the pre- and post-pandemic periods, the incidence of dengue fever and malaria significantly decreased, which may be related to limited human transboundary mobility (p = 0.003/0.002). The incidence of severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome, scrub typhus, and Japanese spotted fever did not show changes between the two periods or no association with human mobility. This study suggests that behavioral control may reduce the incidence of new mosquito-borne diseases from endemic areas but may not affect tick-borne disease epidemics within an endemic area.
2019 年冠状病毒病（COVID-19）大流行不仅鼓励人们养成良好的卫生习惯，还导致行为抑制，导致本地和输入性传染病减少。然而，在人类流动限制下，虫媒传染病的流行模式变化尚不清楚。因此，我们旨在通过描述性流行病学研究调查跨境和本地流动限制对虫媒传染病的影响。该分析使用了日本国家传染病监测系统的数据进行。我们将大流行前时期定义为 2016 年第 1 周到 2019 年第 52 周，将大流行时期定义为 2020 年第 1 周到 2021 年第 52 周，假设整个大流行期间人类流动都受到限制。本研究涉及 24 种法定的虫媒传染病。从国家传染病监测系统的每周报告中获取数据集，并检查每种虫媒传染病的发病率。对两个时期的流行曲线进行了中断时间序列分析。在大流行前和大流行期间，登革热和疟疾的发病率显著下降，这可能与跨境人类流动受限有关（p=0.003/0.002）。严重发热伴血小板减少综合征、丛林斑疹伤寒和日本立克次体病的发病率在两个时期之间没有变化，或与人类流动无关。本研究表明，行为控制可能会降低来自流行地区的新蚊媒病的发病率，但可能不会影响流行地区内的蜱传疾病流行。
