Real-time dengue forecast for outbreak alerts in Southern Taiwan

PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 2020 Jul 27;14(7):e0008434. doi: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0008434. eCollection 2020 Jul.

Abstract

Dengue fever is a viral disease transmitted by mosquitoes. In recent decades, dengue fever has spread throughout the world. In 2014 and 2015, southern Taiwan experienced its most serious dengue outbreak in recent years. Some statistical models have been established in the past, however, these models may not be suitable for predicting huge outbreaks in 2014 and 2015. The control of dengue fever has become the primary task of local health agencies. This study attempts to predict the occurrence of dengue fever in order to achieve the purpose of timely warning. We applied a newly developed autoregressive model (AR model) to assess the association between daily weather variability and daily dengue case number in 2014 and 2015 in Kaohsiung, the largest city in southern Taiwan. This model also contained additional lagged weather predictors, and developed 5-day-ahead and 15-day-ahead predictive models. Our results indicate that numbers of dengue cases in Kaohsiung are associated with humidity and the biting rate (BR). Our model is simple, intuitive and easy to use. The developed model can be embedded in a "real-time" schedule, and the data (at present) can be updated daily or weekly based on the needs of public health workers. In this study, a simple model using only meteorological factors performed well. The proposed real-time forecast model can help health agencies take public health actions to mitigate the influences of the epidemic.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Dengue / epidemiology*
  • Disease Outbreaks
  • Forecasting
  • Humans
  • Humidity
  • Models, Statistical
  • Taiwan / epidemiology
  • Temperature
  • Weather

Grants and funding

Tsou HH and Hsiung CA received research grants from National Health Research Institutes (MR-106-AP-01, MR-107-PP-15, and MR-108-GP-02), a non-profit foundation dedicated to medical research and improved healthcare in Taiwan (URL: http://english.nhri.org.tw/NHRI_WEB/nhriw001Action.do). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.