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Climate Change and Human Health Literature Portal Effects of local climate variability on transmission dynamics of cholera in Matlab, Bangladesh

Climate Change and Human Health Literature Portal

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
2009
Transactions of The Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. 103 (11): 1165-1170

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 >or=23.25 degrees C and sunshine <4.13h/day, the cholera occurrence was 39 cases/month. With increased sunshine (>or=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 >or=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.

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Resource Description

    Meteorological Factor, Precipitation, Solar Radiation, Temperature, Water Quality
    • Meteorological Factor, Precipitation, Solar Radiation, Temperature, Water Quality: Variability
    • Meteorological Factor, Precipitation, Solar Radiation, Temperature, Water Quality: Marine/Freshwater Biotoxin, Marine/Freshwater Pathogen
    General Geographic Feature
    Non-United States
    • Non-United States: Asia
    Infectious Disease, Morbidity/Mortality
    • Infectious Disease, Morbidity/Mortality: Waterborne Disease
      • Waterborne Disease: Cholera (waterborne)
      Waterborne Disease
    Research Article
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