Malaria incidence trends and their association with climatic variables in rural Gwanda, Zimbabwe, 2005–2015

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Abstract

Background

Malaria is a public health problem in Zimbabwe. Although many studies have indicated that climate change may influence the distribution of malaria, there is paucity of information on its trends and association with climatic variables in Zimbabwe. To address this shortfall, the trends of malaria incidence and its interaction with climatic variables in rural Gwanda, Zimbabwe for the period January 2005 to April 2015 was assessed.

Methods

Retrospective data analysis of reported cases of malaria in three selected Gwanda district rural wards (Buvuma, Ntalale and Selonga) was carried out. Data on malaria cases was collected from the district health information system and ward clinics while data on precipitation and temperature were obtained from the climate hazards group infrared precipitation with station data (CHIRPS) database and the moderate resolution imaging spectro-radiometer (MODIS) satellite data, respectively. Distributed lag non-linear models (DLNLM) were used to determine the temporal lagged association between monthly malaria incidence and monthly climatic variables.

Results

There were 246 confirmed malaria cases in the three wards with a mean incidence of 0.16/1000 population/month. The majority of malaria cases (95%) occurred in the > 5 years age category. The results showed no correlation between trends of clinical malaria (unconfirmed) and confirmed malaria cases in all the three study wards. There was a significant association between malaria incidence and the climatic variables in Buvuma and Selonga wards at specific lag periods. In Ntalale ward, only precipitation (1- and 3-month lag) and mean temperature (1- and 2-month lag) were significantly associated with incidence at specific lag periods (p < 0.05). DLNM results suggest a key risk period in current month, based on key climatic conditions in the 1–4 month period prior.

Conclusions

As the period of high malaria risk is associated with precipitation and temperature at 1–4 month prior in a seasonal cycle, intensifying malaria control activities over this period will likely contribute to lowering the seasonal malaria incidence.

Related collections

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Author and article information

Contributors

Resign Gunda:

ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1404-9879

+27769537868 , gundazr@yahoo.co.uk

Moses John Chimbari: Chimbari@ukzn.ac.za

Shepherd Shamu: shamushe@yahoo.com

Benn Sartorius: Sartorius@ukzn.ac.za

Samson Mukaratirwa: Mukaratirwa@ukzn.ac.za

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Malar J

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Malar. J

Title: Malaria Journal

Publisher: BioMed Central (London )

ISSN (Electronic): 1475-2875

Publication date (Electronic): 30 September 2017

Publication date PMC-release: 30 September 2017

Publication date Collection: 2017

Volume: 16

Electronic Location Identifier: 393

Affiliations

[1 ]ISNI 0000 0001 0723 4123, GRID grid.16463.36, School of Nursing and Public Health, , University of KwaZulu-Natal, ; Durban, South Africa

[2 ]ISNI 0000 0001 0723 4123, GRID grid.16463.36, College of Health Sciences, , University of KwaZulu-Natal, ; Howard Campus, Durban, South Africa

[3 ]ISNI 0000 0004 0572 0760, GRID grid.13001.33, Department of Community Medicine, , University of Zimbabwe, ; Harare, Zimbabwe

[4 ]ISNI 0000 0001 0723 4123, GRID grid.16463.36, Discipline of Public Health Medicine, School of Nursing and Public Health, , University of KwaZulu-Natal, ; Durban, South Africa

[5 ]ISNI 0000 0001 0723 4123, GRID grid.16463.36, School of Life Sciences, , University of KwaZulu-Natal, ; Durban, South Africa

Author information

Resign Gunda http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1404-9879

Article

Publisher ID: 2036

DOI: 10.1186/s12936-017-2036-0

PMC ID: 5622423

PubMed ID: 28964255

SO-VID: b79e10f3-7349-424a-9252-2a329b96787a

License:

Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.