Rapid global growth and intensification of dengue since 1990 | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Biological Sciences - Article Rapid global growth and intensification of dengue since 1990 Oliver Brady, Ahyoung Lim, Kishen Joshi, Preethi Lakshminarayanan, and 10 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-8976788/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Review Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Dengue is an emerging infectious disease of growing global importance, yet the pace of its expansion remains poorly quantified because surveillance data are inconsistently reported across countries and over time. This undermines prioritisation of interventions and limits the ability to track progress towards international targets, including the WHO 2030 goals. Here we combine an extensive search for dengue data worldwide with Bayesian imputation and downscaling models to produce comprehensive estimates of monthly dengue case counts for 143 countries between 1990 and 2024. We estimate 73.9 million reported dengue cases worldwide over this period, including 10.6 million cases not captured in WHO digitised databases. Reported dengue incidence increased 39-fold between 1990 and 2024, corresponding to an average annual growth rate of 9.1%, with pronounced regional heterogeneity: growth was fastest in recently emerging regions in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, and slowest in long-established endemic regions of Southeast Asia. Annual and multiannual dengue outbreaks have doubled in cyclical strength and become increasingly synchronised globally. Collectively these data show that dengue is expanding faster, more consistently and more intensely than previously thought. These data provide a foundation for improved understanding, prediction and control of dengue expansion during a period of declining incidence for most other infectious diseases. Health sciences/Diseases/Infectious diseases/Viral infection Health sciences/Medical research/Epidemiology Biological sciences/Computational biology and bioinformatics/Statistical methods Full Text Additional Declarations There is NO Competing Interest. Supplementary Files nrsoftwarepolicygapfilling.pdf Software policy Supplementarydata.csv Dataset 1 nreditorialpolicychecklistgapfilling.pdf Editorial policy checklist Supplementarysubmission.docx Supplementary Information nrreportingsummarygapfilling.pdf Reporting summary Cite Share Download PDF Status: Under Review Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-8976788","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Biological Sciences - Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":597720092,"identity":"cd475dd6-ab11-47d7-8645-52f3e568f9d1","order_by":0,"name":"Oliver Brady","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAABCklEQVRIiWNgGAWjYBACfnbGBhBdB8QGDB8KGBJgMga4tEg2Q7QkgxQxzjBgSOAhpMXgMIROBGo0YOYhTgtzm8THPQzJ5u2Ht0nbGNTl2YsdYPzwg+GwMW4tjG2SM54x1MmcSSuTzjE4XMwjncAs2cNw2AyPlmZjngMMyRIMOWZALQcSe6QTGKQZGA7b4NXy5wBD4gz+N2bSFgZ1IC3MvwloaXzMANIiAbQFGAIgLWwgW3A6DBjIjQ97DkgkS0g8K7bsMTic2HM7sQ3ISMfpfX729gcHfhywqZPgT95440dFXWL77OTDQIa1YQMuPRAgASJYJCAcUOTijBVUwPyBOHWjYBSMglEw0gAAZANSm5sGjnsAAAAASUVORK5CYII=","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3235-2129","institution":"LSHTM","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Oliver","middleName":"","lastName":"Brady","suffix":""},{"id":597720093,"identity":"5c796b5e-ed1e-4c44-a1ff-d45dc76b8227","order_by":1,"name":"Ahyoung Lim","email":"","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4445-5034","institution":"London School of Hygiene \u0026 Tropical Medicine","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Ahyoung","middleName":"","lastName":"Lim","suffix":""},{"id":597720094,"identity":"6a6ffbe3-7d6d-409a-9b10-67d2e1b388e7","order_by":2,"name":"Kishen Joshi","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"London School of Hygiene \u0026 Tropical Medicine","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Kishen","middleName":"","lastName":"Joshi","suffix":""},{"id":597720095,"identity":"ce88107f-f11d-4a16-b11a-896ebdbff88b","order_by":3,"name":"Preethi Lakshminarayanan","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"London School of Hygiene \u0026 Tropical Medicine","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Preethi","middleName":"","lastName":"Lakshminarayanan","suffix":""},{"id":597720096,"identity":"18970cac-ea0a-448f-aee7-6cf696b3dec9","order_by":4,"name":"Katie Susong","email":"","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5040-5271","institution":"London School of Hygiene \u0026 Tropical Medicine","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Katie","middleName":"","lastName":"Susong","suffix":""},{"id":597720097,"identity":"e5783756-d294-4f99-a9ea-796cd885b42e","order_by":5,"name":"Joseph Clarke","email":"","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0009-0002-2466-9932","institution":"University of Cambridge","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Joseph","middleName":"","lastName":"Clarke","suffix":""},{"id":597720098,"identity":"6f975eda-eb66-45d6-95a8-2f6f9d695af8","order_by":6,"name":"Jenicca Poongavanan","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Stellenbosch University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Jenicca","middleName":"","lastName":"Poongavanan","suffix":""},{"id":597720099,"identity":"e0e16d41-e10c-49ba-a57f-689ec033948f","order_by":7,"name":"Talia Quandelacy","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Colorado School of Public Health","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Talia","middleName":"","lastName":"Quandelacy","suffix":""},{"id":597720100,"identity":"0946f12e-3179-4196-be08-31b1750b111e","order_by":8,"name":"Ewerton Cousin","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"University of Washington","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Ewerton","middleName":"","lastName":"Cousin","suffix":""},{"id":597720101,"identity":"60d77dc0-89e2-4daa-907e-87991169327d","order_by":9,"name":"Houriiyah Tegally","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Stellenbosch University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Houriiyah","middleName":"","lastName":"Tegally","suffix":""},{"id":597720102,"identity":"6ede3906-6771-4f2d-8ec0-361586c5adc4","order_by":10,"name":"JUE TAO LIM","email":"","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2245-0331","institution":"Nanyang Technological University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"JUE","middleName":"TAO","lastName":"LIM","suffix":""},{"id":597720103,"identity":"af43a20d-9204-439c-bb59-5f57c7ede2a0","order_by":11,"name":"Jonathan Mosser","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"University of Washington","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Jonathan","middleName":"","lastName":"Mosser","suffix":""},{"id":597720104,"identity":"e735cdc5-6e21-41e4-8cb0-02e8fc433c2c","order_by":12,"name":"Michael Johansson","email":"","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5090-7722","institution":"Northeastern","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Michael","middleName":"","lastName":"Johansson","suffix":""},{"id":597720105,"identity":"8e1909ec-eff1-43d4-9e83-d8f7d15c06c0","order_by":13,"name":"Simon Hay","email":"","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0611-7272","institution":"Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Simon","middleName":"","lastName":"Hay","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2026-02-26 10:51:30","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8976788/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-8976788/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":104412861,"identity":"526eebc4-e3d7-4cd7-b9ad-c1b480282f4f","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-03-11 13:01:23","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":1049200,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"Gapfillingpapersubmission.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8976788/v1_covered_3a2e12a1-b1a9-4ef6-8342-5b90266b55e6.pdf"},{"id":104400868,"identity":"9aca6c9a-bbad-44aa-be3c-b3f107f48668","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-03-11 12:11:17","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":1316984,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"Software policy","description":"","filename":"nrsoftwarepolicygapfilling.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8976788/v1/b22349adf002e11ed3ad995a.pdf"},{"id":103819928,"identity":"f80e8a9a-41cc-4826-8a15-68424f2779bd","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-03-03 10:00:41","extension":"csv","order_by":2,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":26173,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"Dataset 1","description":"","filename":"Supplementarydata.csv","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8976788/v1/9cc0104553218509a4033764.csv"},{"id":103819929,"identity":"0d624904-5710-4f64-b398-76fbbfb5a40e","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-03-03 10:00:41","extension":"pdf","order_by":3,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":1682337,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"Editorial policy checklist","description":"","filename":"nreditorialpolicychecklistgapfilling.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8976788/v1/98e753b8b14b397fa3e507ae.pdf"},{"id":103819932,"identity":"720d790f-4624-4768-8410-f18255febde4","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-03-03 10:00:41","extension":"docx","order_by":4,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":1073177,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"Supplementary Information","description":"","filename":"Supplementarysubmission.docx","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8976788/v1/0824f161fe430ce4e518dbf2.docx"},{"id":103819930,"identity":"bffa8705-c843-40a5-80ba-28c57b2ef4ed","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-03-03 10:00:41","extension":"pdf","order_by":5,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":1666054,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"Reporting summary","description":"","filename":"nrreportingsummarygapfilling.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8976788/v1/8518db451b053a82bcefa618.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"There is \u003cb\u003eNO\u003c/b\u003e Competing Interest.","formattedTitle":"Rapid global growth and intensification of dengue since 1990","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":true,"hideJournal":false,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"
[email protected]","identity":"nature-portfolio","isNatureJournal":true,"hasQc":false,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"","title":"Nature Portfolio","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":false,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"ejp","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":false},"keywords":"","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8976788/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-8976788/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"Dengue is an emerging infectious disease of growing global importance, yet the pace of its expansion remains poorly quantified because surveillance data are inconsistently reported across countries and over time. This undermines prioritisation of interventions and limits the ability to track progress towards international targets, including the WHO 2030 goals. Here we combine an extensive search for dengue data worldwide with Bayesian imputation and downscaling models to produce comprehensive estimates of monthly dengue case counts for 143 countries between 1990 and 2024. We estimate 73.9 million reported dengue cases worldwide over this period, including 10.6 million cases not captured in WHO digitised databases. Reported dengue incidence increased 39-fold between 1990 and 2024, corresponding to an average annual growth rate of 9.1%, with pronounced regional heterogeneity: growth was fastest in recently emerging regions in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, and slowest in long-established endemic regions of Southeast Asia. Annual and multiannual dengue outbreaks have doubled in cyclical strength and become increasingly synchronised globally. Collectively these data show that dengue is expanding faster, more consistently and more intensely than previously thought. These data provide a foundation for improved understanding, prediction and control of dengue expansion during a period of declining incidence for most other infectious diseases.","manuscriptTitle":"Rapid global growth and intensification of dengue since 1990","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2026-03-03 10:00:36","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8976788/v1","editorialEvents":[],"status":"published","journal":{"display":false,"email":"
[email protected]","identity":"nature","isNatureJournal":true,"hasQc":false,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"nature","sideBox":"Learn more about [Nature](http://www.nature.com/nature/)","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"","title":"Nature","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"ejp","reportingPortfolio":"Nature","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":false}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"56d37845-4f99-4ad5-871e-e72c9ca3b7f5","owner":[],"postedDate":"March 3rd, 2026","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[{"type":"editorInvitedReview","content":"This content is not available.","date":"2026-05-04T14:49:02+00:00","index":1,"fulltext":"This content is not available."}],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"under-review","subjectAreas":[{"id":63609220,"name":"Health sciences/Diseases/Infectious diseases/Viral infection"},{"id":63609221,"name":"Health sciences/Medical research/Epidemiology"},{"id":63609222,"name":"Biological sciences/Computational biology and bioinformatics/Statistical methods"}],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2026-03-11T03:20:38+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2026-03-03 10:00:36","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-8976788","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-8976788","identity":"rs-8976788","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"XKTyCvWXoU3ODBz1xrDgd","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}
Text is read by the "Ask this paper" AI Q&A widget below.
Extraction quality varies by source — PMC NXML preserves structure
cleanly, OA-HTML may include some navigation residue, and OA-PDF can
have broken hyphenation. The publisher copy
(via DOI)
is the canonical version.