School of Public Health and Social Work, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Queensland, 4059, Australia.
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics & Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Major Autoimmune Disease, School of Public Health, Anhui Medical University, Anhui, China.
Int J Biometeorol. 2021 Jul;65(7):1033-1042. doi: 10.1007/s00484-021-02085-1. Epub 2021 Feb 17.
Dengue transmission is climate-sensitive and permissive conditions regularly cause large outbreaks in Asia-Pacific area. As climate change progresses, extreme weather events such as heatwaves and unusually high rainfall are predicted more intense and frequent, but their impacts on dengue outbreaks remain unclear so far. This paper aimed to investigate the relationship between extreme weather events (i.e., heatwaves, extremely high rainfall and extremely high humidity) and dengue outbreaks in China. We obtained daily number of locally acquired dengue cases and weather factors for Guangzhou, China, for the period 2006-2015. The definition of dengue outbreaks was based on daily number of locally acquired cases above the threshold (i.e., mean + 2SD of daily distribution of dengue cases during peaking period). Heatwave was defined as ≥2 days with temperature ≥ 95th percentile, and extreme rainfall and humidity defined as daily values ≥95th percentile during 2006-2015. A generalized additive model was used to examine the associations between extreme weather events and dengue outbreaks. Results showed that all three extreme weather events were associated with increased risk of dengue outbreaks, with a risk increase of 115-251% around 6 weeks after heatwaves, 173-258% around 6-13 weeks after extremely high rainfall, and 572-587% around 6-13 weeks after extremely high humidity. Each extreme weather event also had good capacity in predicting dengue outbreaks, with the model's sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, and area under the receiver operating characteristics curve all exceeding 86%. This study found that heatwaves, extremely high rainfall, and extremely high humidity could act as potential drivers of dengue outbreaks.
登革热传播受气候影响，适宜条件经常导致亚太地区的大规模暴发。随着气候变化的推进，预计热浪和异常高降雨量等极端天气事件将更加剧烈和频繁，但它们对登革热暴发的影响迄今仍不清楚。本文旨在研究极端天气事件（即热浪、异常高降雨量和异常高湿度）与中国登革热暴发之间的关系。我们获取了中国广州 2006-2015 年期间的本地登革热病例数和天气因素的每日数据。登革热暴发的定义基于每日本地登革热病例数超过阈值（即高峰期每日登革热病例分布的均值+2SD）。热浪定义为≥2 天的温度≥95 百分位数，极端降雨和湿度定义为 2006-2015 年期间每日值≥95 百分位数。广义加性模型用于检验极端天气事件与登革热暴发之间的关联。结果表明，三种极端天气事件均与登革热暴发风险增加相关，热浪后约 6 周风险增加 115-251%，异常高降雨量后约 6-13 周风险增加 173-258%，异常高湿度后约 6-13 周风险增加 572-587%。每种极端天气事件在预测登革热暴发方面也具有良好的能力，模型的灵敏度、特异性、准确性和接收者操作特征曲线下面积均超过 86%。本研究发现，热浪、异常高降雨量和异常高湿度可能是登革热暴发的潜在驱动因素。
