IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pmed00/0030295.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Climate Cycles and Forecasts of Cutaneous Leishmaniasis, a Nonstationary Vector-Borne Disease

Author

Listed:
  • Luis Fernando Chaves
  • Mercedes Pascual

Abstract

Background: Cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) is one of the main emergent diseases in the Americas. As in other vector-transmitted diseases, its transmission is sensitive to the physical environment, but no study has addressed the nonstationary nature of such relationships or the interannual patterns of cycling of the disease. Methods and Findings: We studied monthly data, spanning from 1991 to 2001, of CL incidence in Costa Rica using several approaches for nonstationary time series analysis in order to ensure robustness in the description of CL's cycles. Interannual cycles of the disease and the association of these cycles to climate variables were described using frequency and time-frequency techniques for time series analysis. We fitted linear models to the data using climatic predictors, and tested forecasting accuracy for several intervals of time. Forecasts were evaluated using “out of fit” data (i.e., data not used to fit the models). We showed that CL has cycles of approximately 3 y that are coherent with those of temperature and El Niño Southern Oscillation indices (Sea Surface Temperature 4 and Multivariate ENSO Index). Conclusions: Linear models using temperature and MEI can predict satisfactorily CL incidence dynamics up to 12 mo ahead, with an accuracy that varies from 72% to 77% depending on prediction time. They clearly outperform simpler models with no climate predictors, a finding that further supports a dynamical link between the disease and climate. Using mathematical models, the authors show that cutaneous leishmaniasis has cycles of approximately three years that are related to temperature cycles and indices of the El Niño Southern Oscillation. :

Suggested Citation

  • Luis Fernando Chaves & Mercedes Pascual, 2006. "Climate Cycles and Forecasts of Cutaneous Leishmaniasis, a Nonstationary Vector-Borne Disease," PLOS Medicine, Public Library of Science, vol. 3(8), pages 1-9, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pmed00:0030295
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0030295
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0030295
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0030295&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pmed.0030295?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Margherita Grasso & Matteo Manera & Aline Chiabai & Anil Markandya, 2012. "The Health Effects of Climate Change: A Survey of Recent Quantitative Research," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 9(5), pages 1-25, April.
    2. Ibrahim M. ELmojtaba & Santanu Biswas & Joydev Chattopadhyay, 2017. "Global Analysis and Optimal Control of a Periodic Visceral Leishmaniasis Model," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 5(4), pages 1-18, December.
    3. Daniel C Medina & Sally E Findley & Boubacar Guindo & Seydou Doumbia, 2007. "Forecasting Non-Stationary Diarrhea, Acute Respiratory Infection, and Malaria Time-Series in Niono, Mali," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 2(11), pages 1-13, November.
    4. Luis Fernando Chaves & Mercedes Pascual, 2007. "Comparing Models for Early Warning Systems of Neglected Tropical Diseases," PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, Public Library of Science, vol. 1(1), pages 1-6, October.
    5. Masoom Kassi & Mahwash Kassi & Abaseen Khan Afghan & Rabeea Rehman & Pashtoon Murtaza Kasi, 2008. "Marring Leishmaniasis: The Stigmatization and the Impact of Cutaneous Leishmaniasis in Pakistan and Afghanistan," PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, Public Library of Science, vol. 2(10), pages 1-3, October.
    6. Lahouari Bounoua & Kholoud Kahime & Leila Houti & Tara Blakey & Kristie L. Ebi & Ping Zhang & Marc L. Imhoff & Kurtis J. Thome & Claire Dudek & Salah A. Sahabi & Mohammed Messouli & Baghdad Makhlouf &, 2013. "Linking Climate to Incidence of Zoonotic Cutaneous Leishmaniasis ( L. major ) in Pre-Saharan North Africa," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 10(8), pages 1-20, July.
    7. Ting-Wu Chuang & Luis Fernando Chaves & Po-Jiang Chen, 2017. "Effects of local and regional climatic fluctuations on dengue outbreaks in southern Taiwan," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(6), pages 1-20, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pmed00:0030295. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosmedicine (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.