tetano
Editor, Senior Moderator
PLoS One
. 2025 Mar 27;20(3):e0319941.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0319941. eCollection 2025. Disability-adjusted life years associated with COVID-19 in Brazil, 2020
Cleber Vinicius Brito Dos Santos[SUP] 1 [/SUP], Lara Esteves Coelho[SUP] 2 [/SUP], Guilherme Tegoni Goedert[SUP] 3 [/SUP], Paula Mendes Luz[SUP] 2 [/SUP], Guilherme Loureiro Werneck[SUP] 1 4 [/SUP], Daniel Antunes Maciel Villela[SUP] 5 [/SUP], Cláudio José Struchiner[SUP] 1 3 [/SUP]
Affiliations
Background: We quantified the national- and state-level burden of COVID-19 in Brazil and its states during 2020 and contrasted it to the burden from other causes of disease and injury.
Methods: We used national surveillance data on COVID-19 cases, hospitalisations and deaths between February/2020 to December/2020. We calculated disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) based on the COVID-19 consensus model and methods developed by the European Burden of Disease Network, which includes mild to moderate, severe, and critical COVID-19 cases, long covid and deaths due to COVID-19. We used Brazil DALYs estimates from the Global Burden of Disease Collaborative Network to compare the COVID-19 burden to that from other causes of disease and injury.
Results: COVID-19's led to 5,445,785 DALYs, or 2,603 DALYs/100,000, with > 99% of the burden caused by mortality. Males accounted for the largest fraction of DALYs (3,214,905 or 59%) and DALYs per 100,000 population (140,594 or 63%). Most populated states experienced the highest DALYs. However, the DALYs per 100,000 population were higher in the states of Rio de Janeiro (4,504 DALYs/100,000), Amapá (4,106 DALYs/100,000) and Roraima (3,981 DALYs/100,000). Assuming no major changes in disease burden from other causes of disease and injury from 2019 to 2020 in Brazil, COVID-19's burden would rank as the leading cause of disability in 2020.
Conclusions: Compared with studies with similar methodology, our findings showed that Brazil experienced the highest COVID-19 burden (per 100,000 population) in the world. COVID-19 severely impacted Brazil's populational health in 2020, highlighting the lack of effective mitigation efforts.
. 2025 Mar 27;20(3):e0319941.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0319941. eCollection 2025. Disability-adjusted life years associated with COVID-19 in Brazil, 2020
Cleber Vinicius Brito Dos Santos[SUP] 1 [/SUP], Lara Esteves Coelho[SUP] 2 [/SUP], Guilherme Tegoni Goedert[SUP] 3 [/SUP], Paula Mendes Luz[SUP] 2 [/SUP], Guilherme Loureiro Werneck[SUP] 1 4 [/SUP], Daniel Antunes Maciel Villela[SUP] 5 [/SUP], Cláudio José Struchiner[SUP] 1 3 [/SUP]
Affiliations
- PMID: 40146692
- DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0319941
Background: We quantified the national- and state-level burden of COVID-19 in Brazil and its states during 2020 and contrasted it to the burden from other causes of disease and injury.
Methods: We used national surveillance data on COVID-19 cases, hospitalisations and deaths between February/2020 to December/2020. We calculated disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) based on the COVID-19 consensus model and methods developed by the European Burden of Disease Network, which includes mild to moderate, severe, and critical COVID-19 cases, long covid and deaths due to COVID-19. We used Brazil DALYs estimates from the Global Burden of Disease Collaborative Network to compare the COVID-19 burden to that from other causes of disease and injury.
Results: COVID-19's led to 5,445,785 DALYs, or 2,603 DALYs/100,000, with > 99% of the burden caused by mortality. Males accounted for the largest fraction of DALYs (3,214,905 or 59%) and DALYs per 100,000 population (140,594 or 63%). Most populated states experienced the highest DALYs. However, the DALYs per 100,000 population were higher in the states of Rio de Janeiro (4,504 DALYs/100,000), Amapá (4,106 DALYs/100,000) and Roraima (3,981 DALYs/100,000). Assuming no major changes in disease burden from other causes of disease and injury from 2019 to 2020 in Brazil, COVID-19's burden would rank as the leading cause of disability in 2020.
Conclusions: Compared with studies with similar methodology, our findings showed that Brazil experienced the highest COVID-19 burden (per 100,000 population) in the world. COVID-19 severely impacted Brazil's populational health in 2020, highlighting the lack of effective mitigation efforts.