The spatiotemporal trajectory of a dengue epidemic in a medium-sized city

• Autor(a) principal: Morato, Daniela G.
• Data de Publicação: 2015
• Outros Autores: Barreto, Florisneide Rodrigues, Braga, José Ueleres, Natividade, Marcio Santos da, Costa, Maria da Conceição Nascimento, Teixeira, Maria da Glória Lima Cruz
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da UFBA
• Texto Completo: http://repositorio.ufba.br/ri/handle/ri/19006
• topic: Dengue; Epidemiology; Epidemic; Diffusion; Spatiotemporal; Trajectory

Understanding the transmission dynamics of infectious diseases is important to allow for improvements of control measures. To investigate the spatiotemporal pattern of an epidemic dengue occurred at a medium-sized city in the Northeast Region of Brazil in 2009, we conducted an ecological study of the notified dengue cases georeferenced according to epidemiological week (EW) and home address. Kernel density estimation and space-time interaction were analysed using the Knox method. The evolution of the epidemic was analysed using an animated projection technique. The dengue incidence was 6.918.7/100,000 inhabitants; the peak of the epidemic occurred from 8 February-1 March, EWs 6-9 (828.7/100,000 inhabitants). There were cases throughout the city and was identified space-time interaction. Three epicenters were responsible for spreading the disease in an expansion and relocation diffusion pattern. If the health services could detect in real time the epicenters and apply nimbly control measures, may possibly reduce the magnitude of dengue epidemics.