India’s performance in controlling Visceral Leishmaniasis as compared to Brazil over past three decades: findings from global burden of disease study

Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is a neglected tropical disease which contributes to the mortality and morbidity significantly in India and Brazil. This study was planned to compare the trends of incidence, prevalence, death and disability-adjusted life years (DALY) of VL burden in India and Brazil from 1990 to 2019 using Global burden of disease study (GBD) data. The metrics are presented as age-standardized rates per 100,000 inhabitants with their respective uncertainty intervals (95% UI) and relative percentages of change. The decline in the Incidence rate is more in case of India (16.82 cases per 100,000 in 1990 to 0.60 cases in 2019) as compared to Brazil (3.12 cases per 100,000 in 1990 to 2.65 cases in 2019). The annualized rate of change in number of prevalent cases for India is − 0.95 (95% UI − 0.98 to − 0.91) whereas for Brazil it is − 0.06 (95% UI − 0.41 to 0.52). The annualized rate of change in number of DALY for India is − 0.94 (95% UI − 0.96 to − 0.92) whereas for Brazil it is − 0.09 (95% UI − 0.25 to 0.28). The annualized rate of change in number of deaths for India is − 0.93 (95% UI − 0.95 to − 0.92) whereas for Brazil it is increasing i.e. 0.04 (95% UI − 0.12 to 0.51). India achieves significant reduction in the age standardized incidence, prevalence, mortality and DALY of VL as compared to Brazil during the period of 1990 to 2019. A multi-centric study is required to assess bottleneck in the existing strategies of VLSCP in Brazil.