EPISCANNER: REAL-TIME EPIDEMIC SCANNER

Objectives: This study aims to develop an efficient framework to produce the peak week and reproduction number estimates for any year of dengue and chikungunya outbreaks in all Brazilian cities. Methods: The Episcanner defines the epidemic year from November to October. Only years with at least 3 weeks of sustained transmission and more than 50 notified cases are selected for analysis. The Richards model is fitted to the cumulative incidence of notified cases, and it was applied to all dengue and chikungunya epidemics from 2011 to 2024 at the municipal level. The fitted parameters derive the epidemic peak week, the mean transmission rate, and the reproduction number. Results: The dataset with the parameters estimated is available in the online dashboard: https://info.dengue.mat.br/epi-scanner/. The dashboards display the cities with the highest number of epidemics in each state and the variation in the reproduction number over the years. Additionally, users can select a city and year to view the estimated parameters and the curve generated by the sigmoidal model. They can also be downloaded through the Mosqlimate API here: https://api.mosqlimate.org/datastore/. The parameters for the current year are updated weekly. Conclusion: The Episcanner provides a rich dataset that can be used to improve the understanding of the spatiotemporal patterns of dengue and chikungunya in the country and feed other models, such as forecast models.