Abstract
Mumps, a common childhood disease, has a high incidence in Guangzhou city, China. It has been proven that mumps is influenced by seasonality. However, the role of meteorological factors among children is yet to be fully ascertained. This study explored the association between meteorological factors and the incidence of mumps among children in Guangzhou. Distributed lag nonlinear models were used to evaluate the correlation between meteorological factors and the incidence of mumps among children from 2014-2018. The nonlinear lag effects of some meteorological factors were detected. Mean temperature, atmospheric pressure, and relative humidity were positively correlated with mumps incidence, contrary to that of wind speed. Extreme effects of temperature, wind speed, atmospheric pressure, and relative humidity on the incidence of mumps among children in Guangzhou were evaluated in a subgroup analysis according to gender and age. Our preliminary results offered fundamental information to better understand the epidemic trends of mumps among children to develop an early warning system, and strengthen the intervention and prevention of mumps.
Highlights
Mumps is a common childhood disease caused by the mumps virus that mostly affects children aged 5–9 years [1, 2]
The monthly distribution is shown in the monthly boxplot of meteorological factors (Fig 4)
In China, the epidemic pattern in Guanghzou differed from that of Beijing city, Zibo city in Shandong province, and Chongqing city, which showed two epidemic peaks from April to July and October to January, with an emphasis on the former [17, 27, 28]. It indicated that the effect of meteorological factors on the occurrence of mumps may be distinct in various regions with particular climatic features. Climatic variables such as temperature, relative humidity, and wind speed have been proven to play a key role in the occurrence of certain infectious diseases [29,30,31]
Summary
Mumps is a common childhood disease caused by the mumps virus that mostly affects children aged 5–9 years [1, 2]. It manifests clinically as an inflammation of the parotid gland with precursory fever. The incubation period of mumps is 12–24 days, with a median of 19 days [4]. Mumps is transmitted by droplet spread, and via direct contact or contaminated fomites [1]. Mumps can be effectively prevented by vaccination. A sharp reduction in incidence was observed after routine vaccination [5]; many countries, including France [6], Ireland
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