Considering waning immunity to better explain dengue dynamics

Leonardo López (1) , Richard E. Paul (2) , Van-Mai Cao-Lormeau (3) , Xavier Rodó (1, 4)

1 ISGlobal - Instituto de Salud Global - Institute For Global Health [Barcelona]
2 Écologie et Émergence des Pathogènes Transmis par les Arthropodes / Ecology and Emergence of Arthropod-borne Pathogens
3 ILM - Institut Louis Malardé [Papeete]
4 ICREA - Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats

Lifelong serotype-specific immunity following dengue virus infection may not always occur, but the true extent of this effect is unknown. Analysis of more than 20 years of monotypic epidemics in the isolated French Polynesian islands revealed that whilst the risk of symptomatic dengue infection did conform to the classical paradigms of homotypic immunity and increased disease risk in heterotypic secondary infections, incorporation of waning immunity improved the ability of epidemiological models to capture the observed epidemic dynamics. Not only does this show how inclusion of waning immunity into classical models can reveal important facets of the immune response to natural dengue virus infection, it also has significant ramifications for vaccine development and implementation in dengue endemic areas.

Keywords: DENV; Dengue; French; Polynesia; Monotypic; Epidemics; Immunity; Vaccine; Model

Domains: Life Sciences [q-bio]; Life Sciences [q-bio]

Leonardo López, Richard E. Paul, Van-Mai Cao-Lormeau, Xavier Rodó. Considering waning immunity to better explain dengue dynamics. Epidemics, 2022, 41, pp.100630. ⟨10.1016/j.epidem.2022.100630⟩. ⟨pasteur-04009098⟩