A combination of climatic conditions determines major within-season dengue outbreaks in Guangdong Province, China
Author(s)
Wang, Xia
Tang, Sanyi
Wu, Jianhong
Xiao, Yanni
Cheke, Robert A
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Background
China’s Guangdong Province experienced a major dengue outbreak in 2014. Here we investigate if the weather conditions contributing to the outbreak can be elucidated by multi-scale models.
Methods
A multi-scale modelling framework, parameterized by available weather, vector and human case data, was used to examine the integrative effect of temperature and precipitation variation on the effective reproduction number (ERN) of dengue fever.
Results
With temperature in the range of 25–30 °C, increasing precipitation leads to an increase in the ERN with an average lag of 10 days. With monthly precipitation fixed, the more regular the pattern of rainfall (i.e. higher numbers of rainy days), the larger is the total number of adult mosquitoes. A rainfall distribution peaking in June and July produces a large ERN, beneficial to transmission. Climate conditions conducive to major outbreaks within a season are a combination of relatively high temperature, high precipitation peaking in June and July, and uninterrupted drizzle or regular rainfall.
Conclusions
Evaluating a set of weather conditions favourable to a future major dengue outbreak requires near-future prediction of temperature variation, total rainfall and its peaking times. Such information permits seasonal rapid response management decisions due to the lags between the precipitation events and the realisation of the ERN.
China’s Guangdong Province experienced a major dengue outbreak in 2014. Here we investigate if the weather conditions contributing to the outbreak can be elucidated by multi-scale models.
Methods
A multi-scale modelling framework, parameterized by available weather, vector and human case data, was used to examine the integrative effect of temperature and precipitation variation on the effective reproduction number (ERN) of dengue fever.
Results
With temperature in the range of 25–30 °C, increasing precipitation leads to an increase in the ERN with an average lag of 10 days. With monthly precipitation fixed, the more regular the pattern of rainfall (i.e. higher numbers of rainy days), the larger is the total number of adult mosquitoes. A rainfall distribution peaking in June and July produces a large ERN, beneficial to transmission. Climate conditions conducive to major outbreaks within a season are a combination of relatively high temperature, high precipitation peaking in June and July, and uninterrupted drizzle or regular rainfall.
Conclusions
Evaluating a set of weather conditions favourable to a future major dengue outbreak requires near-future prediction of temperature variation, total rainfall and its peaking times. Such information permits seasonal rapid response management decisions due to the lags between the precipitation events and the realisation of the ERN.
Date Issued
2019-01-21
Date Acceptance
2019-01-07
Citation
Parasites & Vectors, 2019, 12 (1)
ISSN
1756-3305
Publisher
BioMed Central
Journal / Book Title
Parasites & Vectors
Volume
12
Issue
1
Copyright Statement
© 2019 The Author(s). Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and
reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to
the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver
(http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and
reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to
the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver
(http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
Identifier
http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000456972500001&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=1ba7043ffcc86c417c072aa74d649202
Subjects
Science & Technology
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Parasitology
Tropical Medicine
Dengue
Aedes
Precipitation
Temperature
Multi-scale model
Short-term forecast
Effective reproduction number
REPRODUCTION NUMBER
AEDES-ALBOPICTUS
FEVER
GUANGZHOU
IMPACT
TRANSMISSION
MODEL
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
45
Date Publish Online
2019-01-21