Association between Infectious Diseases and Weather Variables in Lao People's Democratic Republic

Abstract

Background: Existing studies and models of the effect of climate condition on the incidence of infectious diseases have been conducted to examine the association between infectious diseases and weather variables. Infectious diseases incidences are still high in tropical and subtropical zones, which most of them are developing countries, and remain as major health problems due to economically challenged situations. Our aim is to investigate the association between infectious diseases and weather variable (local and global) in Lao Peoples Democratic Republic, a tropical and developing country, where infectious diseases are still the major health problem. Method: We analyzed the incidence of three diseases data (dengue fever, typhoid fever, and total hepatitis) and five weather variables (mean temperature, relative humidity, rainfall, DMI, and NINO3) using Generalized Additive Models (GAMs) analysis, to conduct a fitted model that shows the association between infectious diseases and weather variables. Conclusion: The association is the strongest in dengue fever, followed by typhoid fever, and total hepatitis. For Lao Peoples Democratic Republic, both local and global weather variables (mean temperature, relative humidity, and NINO3) showed strong association with dengue fever. For typhoid fever, global weather variable (DMI) showed the strongest association. For total hepatitis, local weather variable (relative humidity) showed the strongest association in Northern and Southern regions but showed no association in Central region.