Abstract
BackgroundHand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) is one of the highest reported infectious diseases with several outbreaks across the world. This study aimed at describing epidemiological characteristics, investigating spatio-temporal clustering changes, and identifying determinant factors in different clustering areas of HFMD.MethodsDescriptive statistics was used to evaluate the epidemic characteristics of HFMD from 2009 to 2015. Spatial autocorrelation and spatio-temporal cluster analysis were used to explore the spatial temporal patterns. An autologistic regression model was employed to explore determinants of HFMD clustering.ResultsThe incidence rates of HFMD ranged from 54.31/10 million to 318.06/10 million between 2009 and 2015 in Hunan. Cases were mainly prevalent in children aged 5 years and even younger, with an average male-to-female sex ratio of 1.66, and two epidemic periods in each year. Clustering areas gathered in the northern regions in 2009 and in the central regions from 2010 to 2012. They moved to central-southern regions in 2013 and 2014 and central-western regions in 2015. The significant risk factors of HFMD clusters were rainfall (OR = 2.187), temperature (OR = 4.329) and humidity (OR = 2.070). The protect factor was wind speed (OR = 0.258).ConclusionsThe HFMD incidence from 2009 to 2015 in Hunan showed a new spatiotemporal clustering tendency, with the shifting trend of clustering areas toward south and west. Meteorological factors showed a strong association with HFMD clustering, which may assist in predicting future spatial-temporal clusters.
Highlights
Hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) is one of the highest reported infectious diseases with several outbreaks across the world
Many previous studies have found that population density is significantly associated with HFMD occurrence [30, 31], so we introduced the population density covi as the covariate to adjust for population density in different counties
Epidemiological characteristics There were 895,429 HFMD cases reported in Hunan Province from 2009 to 2015, with the average annual incidence rate of 194.57 per 100,000
Summary
Foot and mouth disease (HFMD) is one of the highest reported infectious diseases with several outbreaks across the world. This study aimed at describing epidemiological characteristics, investigating spatio-temporal clustering changes, and identifying determinant factors in different clustering areas of HFMD. Foot and mouth disease (HFMD) is a highly contagious disease caused mainly by human enterovirus 71 (EV71) and coxsackievirus A16 (CoxA16), [1]. The past decades have witnessed several outbreaks of HFMD across the world, affecting millions of people in. Many studies showed that some climatic factors were associated with HFMD infection. By using a time series analysis, Huang et al found that temperature and relative humidity were statistically related to HFMD occurrence [11]. A study carried out by Li et al showed atmospheric pressure having a negative
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