Prevalence and epidemiological aspects of Chikungunya fever in states of the Northeast region of Brazil: A systematic review.

Chikungunya fever is a disease caused by the Chikungunya virus (CHIKV), which is transmitted through the bite of infected female hematophagous mosquitoes of the genus Aedes (Diptera: Culicidae). In the Americas, the first autochthonous cases of the disease were recorded in 2013. A year later, in 2014, the first records of the disease were acquired locally in Brazil, in the states of Bahia and Amapá. The present study aimed to carry out a systematic review of the literature on the prevalence and epidemiological aspects of Chikungunya fever in states of the Northeast region of Brazil, between the years 2018 to 2022. This study was registered in the Open Science Framework (OSF) and in the International Prospective Register of Systemactic Reviews (PROSPERO) and followed the recommendations of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA). The searches were carried out in the scientific electronic databases Literatura Latino-Americana e do Caribe em Ciências da Saúde (LILACS), U. S. National Library of Medicine (PubMed) and Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO), using descriptors cataloged in Descritores em Ciências da Saúde (DeCS) and Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) in Portuguese, English and Spanish. Gray literature was also searched by accessing Google Scholar to search for additional publications not captured in the selected electronic databases. Of the 19 studies included in the present systematic review, seven referred to the state of Ceará. Most cases of Chikungunya fever corresponded to the female gender (ranging from 7.5% to 100.0%), to the age group younger than 60 years (84.2%), to literate individuals (93.3%), belonging to the non-white race/color (95.21%) and blacks (100.0%), and residents of the urban area (range from 51.95% to 100.0%). As for laboratory characteristics, most notifications were diagnosed using clinical-epidemiological criteria (ranging from 71.21% to 90.35%). The epidemiological information about Chikungunya fever in the Northeast region of Brazil presented in this systematic review is useful to better understand the characteristics of the disease introduction process in the country. To this end, prevention and control strategies must be adopted, especially in the Northeast, as this region is most responsible for the number of cases of the disease in the country.