Expansion of Dengue and other arboviral diseases across the Americas

Abstract

In recent decades, the American continent has experienced the continuous expansion of arboviral diseases, particularly dengue, Zika, chikungunya, and Oropouche fever. The combination of climate change, unplanned urbanization, social inequality, and improper solid waste management, especially of disposable plastics, has favored the proliferation of vectors such as Aedes aegypti, A. albopictus, and Culicoides paraensis. This scenario reveals a crisis of governance and integration among health, environmental, and sanitation policies, demanding interdisciplinary approaches under the One Health framework. Therefore, this study aimed to understand the environmental, social, and technological determinants associated with the expansion of arboviruses in the Americas, with emphasis on an applied analysis in the microregion of Lavras, Minas Gerais, Brazil. To this end, an integrative literature review and a field study with a mixed (quantitative and qualitative) approach were combined. The review sought to consolidate evidence regarding plastic waste and vector ecology. The field study was conducted in nine municipalities of the Lavras microregion using a structured questionnaire based on the axes of the National Contingency Plan for Dengue, Chikungunya, and Zika. The results showed that 100% of the municipalities have contingency plans, but only 44.4% use ovitraps and 55.6% maintain situation rooms. Epidemiological monitoring still relies heavily on human effort, with limited use of data intelligence and predictive tools. Although 88.9% of the municipalities conduct serological surveillance and 77.8% maintain a diagnostic flow with the state reference laboratory (LACEN), genomic surveillance remains incipient. The analysis revealed the paradox of “structured reactivity”: systems that are technically capable but operationally fragmented. In addition, a strong relationship was observed between the improper disposal of plastic waste and the persistence of A. aegypti breeding sites, indicating that the accumulation of such materials acts as a key environmental driver for maintaining arboviral transmission. The findings reinforce that Brazil’s main challenge is not the lack of financial resources but rather the absence of integration among institutional levels and public policies, regional governance deficits, and the underutilization of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and digital surveillance. The expansion of arboviruses across the Americas therefore, reflects an intersectoral crisis involving both health and environmental dimensions.