Effect of Climate Change on Spatial-Temporal Distribution of Bacillary Dysentery in Gansu Province, China

Abstract

Global climate changes have both direct and indirect impacts on human health, including affecting the distribution of infectious diseases and speeding up the diffusion of epidemics. The relationship between meteorological conditions and bacillary dysentery was studied using 44,047 cases of bacillary dysentery in Gansu Province during 2004 and 2005. Results show that bacillary dysentery occurs throughout the whole year but has an obvious seasonal characteristic in every region except Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. It occurs mainly in the summer and autumn and the climax is in July and August. The disease numbers of dysentery are positively correlated with the monthly average temperature, the highest temperature, the lowest temperature, and rain quantity. Moreover, the correlative coefficients are better in those places where the climate warming rates are higher. Among the 88 areas (or counties), the highest incidence of bacillary dysentery was 569.62 per 100,000 in the county of Akesai. The lowest incidence of bacillary dysentery was 11.04 per 100,000 in the Gaolan County. The temperature in Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture is low because of its high altitude, but incidence is relatively high. The reason is mainly the lifestyle of the Tibetan people and the relatively bad living conditions. Bacillary dysentery is an epidemic affected by many factors, but climate and meteorological factors are very important exogenous ones.This electronic document is a "live" template. The various components of your paper [title, text, heads, etc.] are already defined on the style sheet, as illustrated by the portions given in this document.