Srinivasa Rao Mutheneni, Andrew P Morse, Cyril Caminade, Suryanaryana Murty Upadhyayula

Emerging Microbes & Infections

Published date August 9, 2017

Dengue burden in India: recent trends and importance of climatic parameters

  • States that, for the past ten years, the number of dengue cases has gradually increased in India
  • States that dengue is driven by complex interactions among host, vector and virus that are influenced by climatic factors
  • Focuses on the extrinsic incubation period (EIP) and its variability in different climatic zones of India
  • Calculates EIP by using daily and monthly mean temperatures for the states of Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Kerala
  • Finds that, among the studied states, a faster/low EIP in Kerala (8–15 days at 30.8 and 23.4 °C) and a generally slower/high EIP in Punjab (5.6–96.5 days at 35 and 0 °C) were simulated with daily temperatures
  • Observes a significant association between dengue cases and precipitation
  • Results suggest that temperature is important in virus development in different climatic regions and may be useful in understanding spatio-temporal variations in dengue risk