Department of Medical Entomology, Research Institute for Tropical Medicine, Filinvest Corporate City, Alabang, Muntinlupa City, Philippines.
Ecology and Emergence of Arthropod-borne Pathogens unit, Institut Pasteur, Université Paris-Cité, Centre National de Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) UMR 2000, Institut National de Recherche pour l'Agriculture, l'Alimentation et l'Environnement (INRAE) USC 1510, Paris, France.
PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 2024 Jul 23;18(7):e0011603. doi: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0011603. eCollection 2024 Jul.
Dengue is an increasing health burden that has spread throughout the tropics and sub-tropics. There is currently no effective vaccine and control is only possible through integrated vector management. Early warning systems (EWS) to alert potential dengue outbreaks are currently being explored but despite showing promise are yet to come to fruition. This study addresses the association of meteorological variables with both mosquito indices and dengue incidences and assesses the added value of additionally using mosquito indices for predicting dengue incidences.
METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Entomological surveys were carried out monthly for 14 months in six sites spread across three environmentally different cities of the Philippines. Meteorological and dengue data were acquired. Non-linear generalized additive models were fitted to test associations of the meteorological variables with both mosquito indices and dengue cases. Rain and the diurnal temperature range (DTR) contributed most to explaining the variation in both mosquito indices and number of dengue cases. DTR and minimum temperature also explained variation in dengue cases occurring one and two months later and may offer potentially useful variables for an EWS. The number of adult mosquitoes did associate with the number of dengue cases, but contributed no additional value to meteorological variables for explaining variation in dengue cases.
CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The use of meteorological variables to predict future risk of dengue holds promise. The lack of added value of using mosquito indices confirms several previous studies and given the onerous nature of obtaining such information, more effort should be placed on improving meteorological information at a finer scale to evaluate efficacy in early warning of dengue outbreaks.
登革热是一种日益严重的健康负担，已在热带和亚热带地区蔓延。目前尚无有效的疫苗，只能通过综合病媒管理来控制。目前正在探索早期预警系统（EWS）以预警潜在的登革热疫情，但尽管有希望，但尚未实现。本研究旨在探讨气象变量与蚊虫指数和登革热发病率之间的关联，并评估额外使用蚊虫指数预测登革热发病率的附加价值。
方法/主要发现：在菲律宾三个环境不同的城市的六个地点进行了为期 14 个月的每月一次的昆虫学调查。获取了气象和登革热数据。非线性格加模型被用来检验气象变量与蚊虫指数和登革热病例之间的关联。降雨和昼夜温差（DTR）对解释蚊虫指数和登革热病例的变化贡献最大。DTR 和最低温度也解释了一到两个月后发生的登革热病例的变化，这可能为预警系统提供了有用的潜在变量。成蚊数量与登革热病例数量有关，但对解释登革热病例变化时，对气象变量没有额外的价值。
结论/意义：使用气象变量预测未来登革热风险具有潜力。使用蚊虫指数没有增加价值，这证实了几项先前的研究，并且鉴于获取此类信息的繁重性质，应更加努力改善更精细尺度的气象信息，以评估登革热疫情早期预警的效果。
