A Significant Decrease in the Incidence of Shigellosis in Israel during COVID-19 Pandemic

Ravit Bassal, Lital Keinan-Boker and Dani Cohen
Additional contact information
Ravit Bassal: Israel Center for Disease Control, Ministry of Health, Sheba Medical Center, Ramat Gan 5262160, Israel
Lital Keinan-Boker: Israel Center for Disease Control, Ministry of Health, Sheba Medical Center, Ramat Gan 5262160, Israel
Dani Cohen: Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, School of Public Health, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 6997801, Israel

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 6, 1-7

Abstract: Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) causes COVID-19 and is mostly person-to-person transmitted through respiratory droplets. The implications of the strategies implemented to prevent COVID-19 transmission on other infectious diseases are unclear. We aimed to appraise trends in the incidence of salmonellosis, shigellosis and campylobacteriosis in Israel during COVID-19 pandemic. Positive stool samples for Salmonella , Shigella and Campylobacter are reported on a monthly basis to the Israel Center for Disease Control from sentinel laboratories, within the framework of a surveillance network of bacterial culture-proven enteric diseases. Age-adjusted incidence rates per 100,000 of shigellosis, salmonellosis and campylobacteriosis were calculated. Mean rates before and after the local onset of COVID-19 pandemic in Israel were compared and Relative Risk Reduction (RRR) was calculated. Joinpoint was used to evaluate secular trends. The mean age-adjusted incidence rate of shigellosis in March–July 2020 was lower than the rate observed in March–July 2018–2019 (RRR = 86.6%), but also decreased for salmonellosis (RRR = 33.0%) and campylobacteriosis (RRR = 30.0%). Using Joinpoint we have shown that the decrease observed for shigellosis was significantly sharper (Annual Percent Change (APC) = ?77.7) between February 2020 and May 2020 than for salmonellosis (APC = ?14.0) between July 2019 and April 2020 and for campylobacteriosis (APC = ?1.1) between January 2018 and July 2020. The preventive measures applied to reduce transmission of COVID-19, including social distancing and hand washing, were ecologically associated with a decreased risk of bacterial enteric diseases in Israel. The association was strongest for shigellosis, a disease that is mostly person-to-person transmitted, as compared to salmonellosis and campylobacteriosis which are mostly foodborne transmitted.

Keywords: COVID-19; outbreak; trend; enteric diseases; incidence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/6/3070/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/6/3070/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:6:p:3070-:d:518122

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().