Abstract
GIS is widely used to observe health data. However, there is limited study of Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease (HFMD) focusing into this area. This study aim to describe the disease spread geographically in eleven divisions of Sarawak, Malaysia. GIS was used to observe the spatial pattern of the disease in Sarawak from year 2006 to 2013. A Spatial Analyst tool of ArcGIS software was applied to locate and present if any potential clustering of HFMD occur between the divisions. An Inverse Distance Weighted (IDW) spatial interpolation method was used to illustrate HFMD spread in the state. This study also observes the locality factors that could influence by the disease. The urban divisions show a high-risk pattern of HFMD during the outbreak year when we used the number of notified cases as the basis. However, there is no significant difference of urban and rural population when IDW was applied to the incidence proportion of HFMD ( p -value = 0.84). From this study, we found that GIS approach is very useful to the health authorities before they decide to implement any activities in reducing the disease transmission for the particular area.
Highlights
HFMD could be transmitted from the infected person through coughing or sneezing, close personal contact, contact with feces or contaminated objects and surfaces (CDC, 2013)
Incidence proportion is a good indicator to apply while comparing and estimating the risk of a disease since we took the population of Sarawak into account
This study demonstrated the spatial autocorrelation of HFMD in Sarawak by using the incidence proportion
Summary
HFMD could be transmitted from the infected person through coughing or sneezing, close personal contact, contact with feces or contaminated objects and surfaces (CDC, 2013). The disease is contagious in Sarawak compared to other state in Malaysia. One component of other infectious diseases in Malaysia Health Facts 2015 reported that the incidence rate of HFMD in Malaysia for year 2014 is 104.7 per 100,000 population (Ministry of Health, 2015). This value increase at 33.3 percent compared to 2014 which it was only 78.52 per 100,000 population. The disease is one of the crucial infectious disease especially to the children as the management protocols aimed at reducing transmission and the number of cases in Malaysia. The disease commonly affects children below ten years old and resulted in a number of deaths (Sarawak State Health Department, 2006)
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