Emergence and expansion of dengue in Paltas: possible implications of the COVID-19 pandemic and climatic variations

Table 1 Distribution of dengue cases according to sex, age and parish before and during COVID-19 in Paltas, 2016–2022

Characteristic	Before COVID-19 (2016–2019) N = 102 (annual x̅, 25.5)		During COVID-19 (2020–2022) N = 80 (annual x̅, 26.6)		Total (2016–2022) N = 182		p
Characteristic	#	%^a	#	%^b	#	%^c	p
Sex
Male	50	49.0	39	48.7	89	48.9	0.963^d
Female	52	50.9	41	51.2	93	51.1
Age
Under 20 years	26	25.5	31	38.7	57	31.3	0.055^e
< 15	14	13.7	17	21.2
15–19	12	11.8	14	17.5
20 years and older	76	74.5	49	61.3	125	68.7
20–64	55	53.9	41	51.2
65 and older	21	20.5	8	10
Parishes
Urban	102	100.0	41	51.2	143	78.6	0.000^f
Rural	0	0	39	48.8	39	21.4

^aPercentage of the pre-pandemic total
^bPercentage of the post-pandemic total
^cPercentage of the 2016–2022 total
^dP value obtained with the chi-square test of independence at a significance level of 95% by comparing the periods before and during the COVID-19 pandemic according to sex (male vs. female)
^eP value obtained with the chi-square test of independence at a significance level of 95% by comparing the periods before and during the COVID-19 pandemic according to age (< 20 years vs. ≥ 20 years)
^fP value obtained using Fisher's exact test at a significance level of 95% by comparing the periods before and during the COVID-19 pandemic according to parish (urban vs. rural)

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