Dengue prevention and treatment: a scoping review

Resumo

Background and objectives: Dengue is an arbovirus with significant socioeconomic impact worldwide and in Brazil. This scenario led the Brazilian Ministry of Health to launch a preventive manual in 2009, and a treatment manual in 2016 to deal with this disease. Between the year of these publications and today, numerous therapeutic options emerged and were discussed in the literature. So, this independent research aims to investigate dengue treatment methods presented in the literature.

Methods: A scoping review was forged following the Problem, Concept, and Context (PCC) strategy, following the guiding questions: “What methods for preventing dengue have been presented in scientific literature in the last 14 years?” “What methods for treating dengue have been presented in scientific literature in the last 8 years? The literature search was performed in PubMed, LILACS, Cochrane, and Scielo using the descriptors "Dengue AND Prevention" and "Dengue AND treatment".

Results: Almost 18 thousand studies were evaluated. Of these, 7474 discussed dengue preventive measures, as only 17 were included in the final text. In parallel, 10.462 were focused on dengue treatment, as only 28 articles were included in the final text.

Interpretation and conclusions: Numerous preventive and therapeutic measures have emerged in recent years; however, further comprehensive studies are imperative to substantiate their effectiveness on a large scale and assess their viability for widespread implementation. In this sense, vaccines and supportive measures, such as fluid therapy, remain primary interventions in dengue prevention and treatment, serving as cornerstones in mitigating the impact of this disease.

KEY WORDS: Dengue; arboviroses; prevention; treatment; epidemiology.