2009

Author(s): Islam MS, Sharker MA, Rheman S, Hossain S, Mahmud ZH, Islam MS, Uddin AM, Yunus M, Osman MS, Ernst R, Rector I, Larson CP, Luby SP, Endtz HP, Cravioto A

Cholera is considered as a model for climate-related infectious diseases. In Bangladesh, cholera epidemics occur during summer and winter seasons, but it is not known how climate variability influences the seasonality of cholera. Therefore, the variability pattern of cholera events was studied in relation to the variation in local climate variables in Matlab, Bangladesh. Classification and regression tree (CART) and principal component analysis (PCA) were used to study the dependency and variability pattern of monthly total cholera cases. An average temperature <23.25 degrees C corresponded to the lowest average cholera occurrence (23 cases/month). At a temperature of >orEuro Surveillance (Bulletin Europeen Sur Les Maladies Transmissibles; European Communicable Disease Bulletin)23.25 degrees C and sunshine <4.13h/day, the cholera occurrence was 39 cases/month. With increased sunshine (>orEuro Surveillance (Bulletin Europeen Sur Les Maladies Transmissibles; European Communicable Disease Bulletin)4.13h/day) and temperature (23.25-28.66 degrees C), the second highest cholera occurrence (44 cases/month) was observed. When the sunshine was >orEuro Surveillance (Bulletin Europeen Sur Les Maladies Transmissibles; European Communicable Disease Bulletin)4.13h/day and the temperature was >28.66 degrees C, the highest cholera occurrence (54 cases/month) was observed. These results demonstrate that in summer and winter seasons in Bangladesh, temperature and sunshine hours compensate each other for higher cholera incidence. The synergistic effect of temperature and sunshine hours provided the highest number of cholera cases.

Journal: Transactions of The Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene

View Website