Utility of sentinel surveillance as an early warning system for emerging pathogens in a low-resource setting: Correlations of dengue, chikungunya, Zika, and COVID-19 trends between sentinel and passive surveillance systems in Puerto Rico, 2012–2023

The representativeness and timeliness of sentinel surveillance for endemic and emerging arboviral and respiratory diseases in low-resource settings are understudied. We compared laboratory-confirmed epidemic dengue, non-epidemic dengue, Zika, chikungunya, and COVID-19 (pre-Omicron and Omicron periods) cases reported in Puerto Rico’s Sentinel Enhanced Dengue Surveillance System (SEDSS) with island-wide trends reported by the Department of Health’s passive disease surveillance system (PADSS). We plotted trends over time to assess representativeness and used lagged cross-correlations to determine whether SEDSS reporting preceded PADSS. SEDSS trends were representative of island-wide trends for all pathogens. SEDSS preceded reporting in PADSS by up to three, eight, and two weeks for epidemic dengue, Zika, and pre-Omicron COVID-19, respectively. Increasing case trends for chikungunya occurred at broadly similar times in both systems, while temporal concordance was lower for non-epidemic dengue. In Puerto Rico, sentinel surveillance was representative of island-wide trends and could provide early warning for dengue epidemics and emerging diseases, such as Zika and COVID-19.