Early warning climate indices for malaria and meningitis in tropical ecological zones

Abstract

this study aims at assessing the impacts of climate indices on the spatiotemporal distribution of malaria and meningitis in nigeria. the primary focus of the research is to develop an early Warning System (eWS) for assessing climate variability implications on malaria and meningitis spread in the study area. Both climate and health data were used in the study to determine the relationship between climate variability and the occurrence of malaria and meningitis. the assessment was based on variations in different ecological zones in Nigeria. Two specific sample locations were randomly selected in each ecological zone for the analysis. the climatic data used in this study are dekadal precipitation, minimum and maximum temperature between 2000 and 2018, monthly aerosol optical depth between 2000 and 2018. The results show that temperature is relatively high throughout the year because the country is located in a tropical region. The significant findings of this study are that rainfall has much influence on the occurrence of malaria, while temperature and aerosol have more impact on meningitis. We found the degree of relationship between precipitation and malaria, there is a correlation coefficient R 2 ≥ 70.0 in Rainforest, Freshwater, and Mangrove ecological zones. the relationship between temperature and meningitis is accompanied by R 2 ≥ 72.0 in both Sahel and Sudan, while aerosol and meningitis harbour R 2 = 77.33 in the Sahel. The assessment of this initial data seems to support the finding that the occurrences of meningitis are higher in the northern region, especially the Sahel and Sudan. in contrast, malaria occurrence is higher in the southern part of the study area. in all, the multiple linear regression results revealed that rainfall was directly associated with malaria with β = 0.64, p = 0.001 but aerosol was directly associated with meningitis with β = 0.59, p < 0.001. The study concludes that variability in climatic elements such as low precipitation, high temperature, and aerosol may be the major drivers of meningitis occurrence. Climatic variability and seasonality play a significant role in the spatiotemporal distribution of diseases. It has been reported that about 700,000 to 2.7 million people die of malaria each year, the majority of them, nearly 75% of those, are African children 1. Several studies have shown that the occurrence and spatial distribution of malaria are sensitive to the seasonality of climatic factors in Iran, most African countries, and other parts of the world with significant perinatal morbidity and mortality 2-6. Disease vectors depend on suitable habitats to breed, which in turn depends heavily on climatic conditions and for understanding the nature of some illness 7. The malaria and meningitis (MM) transmission is highly seasonal due to climatic conditions; these occurrences are much more frequent in recent times due to climate change 8-14. Climate and health are indistinctly interconnected, and this is the same for infectious diseases 15,16. Climate change is likely to incre...

Impact of future climate change on malaria in West Africa

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Parental Pesticide Exposure and Childhood Brain Cancer: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Confirming the IARC/WHO Monographs on Some Organophosphate Insecticides and Herbicides

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