2021

Author(s): Mondal J, Das A, Khatun R

Climate change is a concerning matter nowadays. It has a long-term effect on human health by spreading vector-borne diseases throughout the world, and West Bengal is not an exception. Vector-borne diseases are life-threatening risk for human; approximately 27,437 people have been infected (2016) every year by this giant killer in West Bengal of India. Temperature and rainfall, two important parameters, have directly influenced the vector-borne diseases. An association between vector-borne diseases and climatic conditions has been established by using geographically weighted regression (GWR) technique. GWR resulted overall r square value more than 0.523 in every case of diseases signifies that the climatic parameters (temperature and rainfall) and vector-borne diseases (Dengue, Malaria, Japanese Encephlities) are strongly correlated. The climatic parameters and positive cases of diseases were mapped out by using inverse distance weight (IDW) interpolation technique in this study. Artificial neural network (ANN) was performed to predict and forecast the climatic condition. The predicted findings have been validated by root mean square error (RMSE) (temperature: 0.301; rainfall: 0.380, i.e., acceptable). This study revealed an insight between climate variables and vector-borne cases in different districts of West Bengal to better understand the effects of climate variability on these diseases. A novel approach of this study is to forecast the spreading of vector-borne diseases for incoming day in West Bengal. After a critical analysis, temperature and rainfall were found to be potent factors for the development of vectors (Aedes Aegypti and Aedes albopictus), and based on this, the risk of vector-borne diseases has been predicted for upcoming years. Forecasted climatic parameters showed that almost all the districts of West Bengal would be reached in a climatic condition where there would be a chance of spreading of vector-borne diseases.