Association between Physical Activity and Dengue and Its Repercussions for Public Health: New Insights

TL;DR

This paper explores how regular physical activity might help prevent and reduce the severity of dengue, offering a new public health strategy.

Contribution

The paper introduces the novel idea that physical activity could be a preventive and mitigating factor for dengue.

Findings

Regular physical activity may strengthen the immune system to prevent dengue contagion and severity.

Physical activity could be a public health strategy to reduce hospitalizations and deaths from dengue.

The paper highlights the need for governments to promote physical activity as a preventive tool for infectious diseases.

Abstract

Dengue is an endemic disease in tropical countries, mainly in South America, Southwest Asia, and Africa, which, despite having a low lethality rate, can overwhelm health systems. Strengthening the immune system through regular physical activity can be an important tool to prevent contagion, worsening, hospitalizations, and deaths caused by the disease, as seen in the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, this point of view aims to analyze the possible association between physical activity and dengue and its repercussions on public health. Comments were made on the main characteristics of dengue as well as on the main vaccines available to date. It was also discussed the impacts of dengue on health systems, in addition to the main repercussions for public health when a very large number of people are infected. It was also commented on the main factors that contribute to the worsening of the clinical stage of dengue, in addition to discussions and reflections on physical activity, strengthening the immune system, and dengue. There are assumptions that regular physical activity can be an important public health strategy to prevent contagion, severity, and hospitalizations caused by dengue and that it needs to be promoted by governments around the world as a tool for preventing and treating not only chronic communicable diseases but also infectious diseases.

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