Background: Leptospirosis is a common zoonosis caused by bacteria, Leptospira. The core determinants of the disease are the presence of carrier animals, environmental factors and the interaction between man, carrier and the environment. Understanding the type of relation between these factors and leptospirosis will help in controlling the disease. The current study intends to find the trend of leptospirosis cases, to forecast the disease and to correlate number of cases of leptospirosis with meteorological factors. Methods: The data of leptospirosis cases and the meteorological factors in Thrissur district were collected and entered in MS-Excel and statistical analysis was done using SPSS-16.0. For analysing the trend and to forecast the same, time series analysis method was used. The correctness of the model was tested using Ljung-Box statistics. Results: Time series chart, autocorrelation and partial autocorrelation show leptospirosis follows a seasonal trend. Forecasting of leptospirosis cases from July 2018 to May 2019 made by the model matched with original number reported in Thrissur district. Cross correlation of total rainfall and total rainy days showed that leptospirosis peak approximately 1 month after the onset or together with the rain (lag-1 and 0, r0.471 and 0.380 for total rainfall, lag-1 and 0, r0.501 and 0.469 for total rainy days). Humidity positively affects number of leptospirosis cases (lag-1 and 0, r0.464 and 0.435). June to October, seasonally adjusted factor (SAF) was >100% with highest SAF in August (202.2%). Conclusions: Leptospirosis shows a seasonal trend with more cases in June to October and correlates with change in meteorological factors of the region.

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Background: Air pollution leads to several health effects, the major systems affected were respiratory, dermatology, neurology and ophthalmology. This study is an attempt to find out various health effects of pollution, from a food factory to the nearby residents.Methods: A cross sectional comparative study was performed on 248 residents nearby a food factory, situated in rural area of Thrissur district and a comparative group of 266 participants taken 5km away from this factory.Results: Both the groups were comparable in socio-demographic profile except religion and occupation. There was no statistically significant difference (p>0.05) between the use of firewood in both the groups. The symptoms of major systems involved were respiratory (odds ratio 3.9, 95% CI 2.2 to 6.8), dermatological (odds ratio 18.3, 95% CI 8.3 to 40.7), neurological (odds ratio 13.5, 95% CI 4.1 to 44.7) and ophthalmological (odds ratio 5.9, 95% CI 2.6 to 13.6). The major symptoms complained by them were pruritus (32.7%), skin lesions (17.7%), breathlessness (16.9%), itching eye (13.3%) watering from eye (11.7%) and headache (11.3%). All these symptoms among the case group compared to control group were very high and these associations were highly statistically significant (p<0.001).Conclusions: This study showed an increased occurrence of adverse health effects among the individuals who were residing near the food factory. Therefore this study points out the possibility of environmental pollution (mainly air pollution) as a main factor for the increased prevalence of symptoms among those who reside nearby the factory.