Complexity in the dengue spreading: A network analysis approach

by L. L. Lima, A. P. F. Atman

In an increasingly interconnected society, preventing epidemics has become a major challenge. Numerous infectious diseases spread between individuals by a vector, creating bipartite networks of infection with the characteristics of complex networks. In the case of dengue, a mosquito-borne disease, these infection networks include a vector—the Aedes aegypti mosquito—which has expanded its endemic area due to climate change. In this scenario, innovative approaches are essential to help public agents in the fight against the disease. Using an agent-based model, we investigated the network morphology of a dengue endemic region considering four different serotypes and a small population. The degree, betweenness, and closeness distributions are evaluated for the bipartite networks, considering the interactions up to the second order for each serotype. We observed scale-free features and heavy tails in the degree distribution and betweenness and quantified the decay of the degree distribution with a q–Gaussian fit function. The simulation results indicate that the spread of dengue is primarily driven by human-to-human and human-to-mosquito interaction, reinforcing the importance of controlling the vector to prevent episodes of epidemic outbreaks.