Temperature, relative humidity and sunshine may be the effective predictors for occurrence of malaria in Guangzhou, southern China, 2006-2012

Abstract

Malaria has been endemic in Guangzhou for more than 50 years. The goal of this study was to use a negative binomial regression to identify the relationship between meteorological variables and malaria reported. Our results revealed that each 1°C rise of temperature corresponds to an increase of 0.90% in the monthly number of malaria cases. Likewise, a one percent rise in relative humidity led to an increase of 3.99% and a one hour rise in sunshine led to an increase of 0.68% in the monthly number of cases. Our findings may be useful for developing a simple, precise malaria early warning system. © 2013 Li et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.