Modeling the elevated risk of yellow fever among travelers visiting Brazil, 2018

BACKGROUND: Unlike the epidemic of yellow fever from 2016 to 17 in Brazil mostly restricted to the States of Minas Gerais and Espirito Santo, the epidemic from 2017 to 18 mainly involved São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro and resulted in multiple international disseminations. To understand mechanisms behind this observation, the present study analyzed the distribution of imported cases from Brazil, 2018. METHODS: A statistical model was employed to capture the risk of importing yellow fever by returning international travelers from Brazil. We estimated the relative risk of importation among travelers by the extent of wealth measured by GDP per capita and the relative risk obtained by random assignment of travelers’ destination within Brazil by the relative population size. RESULTS: Upper-half wealthier countries had 2.1 to 3.4 times greater risk of importation than remainders. Even among countries with lower half of GDP per capita, the risk of importation was 2.5 to 2.8 times greater than assuming that the risk of travelers’ infection within Brazil is determined by the regional population size. CONCLUSIONS: Travelers from wealthier countries were at elevated risk of yellow fever, allowing us to speculate that travelers’ local destination and behavior at high risk of infection are likely to act as a key determinant of the heterogeneous risk of importation. It is advised to inform travelers over the ongoing geographic foci of transmission, and if it appears unavoidable to visit tourist destination that has the history of producing imported cases, travelers must be strongly advised to receive vaccination in advance.