Climate change and the emergence of vector-borne diseases in Europe: case study of dengue fever.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Dengue fever is the most prevalent mosquito-borne viral disease worldwide. Dengue transmission is critically dependent on climatic factors and there is much concern as to whether climate change would spread the disease to areas currently unaffected. The occurrence of autochthonous infections in Croatia and France in 2010 has raised concerns about a potential re-emergence of dengue in Europe. The objective of this study is to estimate dengue risk in Europe under climate change scenarios.

Methods

We used a Generalized Additive Model (GAM) to estimate dengue fever risk as a function of climatic variables (maximum temperature, minimum temperature, precipitation, humidity) and socioeconomic factors (population density, urbanisation, GDP per capita and population size),

SUBMITTER: Bouzid M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4143568 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature