Department of Public Health, China Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan.
School of Public Health, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China.
Sci Rep. 2018 Feb 5;8(1):2344. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-19168-6.
The record-breaking number of dengue cases reported in Guangdong, China in 2014 has been topic for many studies. However, the spatial and temporal characteristics of this unexpectedly explosive outbreak are still poorly understood. We adopt an integrated approach to ascertain the spatial-temporal progression of the outbreak in each city in Guangdong as well as in each district in Guangzhou, where the majority of cases occurred. We utilize the Richards model, which determines the waves of reported cases at each location and identifies the turning point for each wave, in combination with a spatial association analysis conducted by computing the standardized G* statistic that measures the degree of spatial autocorrelation of a set of geo-referenced data from a local perspective. We found that Yuexiu district in Guangzhou was the initial hot spot for the outbreak, subsequently spreading to its neighboring districts in Guangzhou and other cities in Guangdong province. Hospital isolation of cases during early stage of outbreak in neighboring Zhongshan (in effort to prevent disease transmission to the vectors) might have played an important role in the timely mitigation of the disease. Integration of modeling approach and spatial association analysis allows us to pinpoint waves that spread the disease to communities beyond the borders of the initially affected regions.
2014 年中国广东省报告的创纪录登革热病例数一直是许多研究的主题。然而，这次异常爆发的时空特征仍未被充分了解。我们采用综合方法确定了广东省各城市以及病例主要发生地广州市各区的疫情时空演变过程。我们利用理查兹模型确定了每个地点报告病例的波峰，并确定了每个波峰的转折点，同时结合空间关联分析，计算标准化 G*统计量来衡量一组从局部角度来看具有空间自相关的地理参考数据的程度。我们发现，广州市越秀区是疫情的初始热点，随后疫情蔓延到广州的邻近地区和广东省的其他城市。在疫情早期，中山对病例进行医院隔离（以防止疾病传播给病媒）可能在及时缓解疾病方面发挥了重要作用。建模方法和空间关联分析的结合使我们能够确定传播疾病到最初受影响地区以外社区的波峰。
