Effects of meteorological factors on human leptospirosis in Colombia

• Published in: International journal of biometeorology Vol. 65; no. 2; pp. 257 - 263
• Main Author: Gutierrez, J. D.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.02.2021; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Animal Physiology; Biological and Medical Physics; Biophysics; Cities; Climatic conditions; Colombia - epidemiology; Earth and Environmental Science; Ecological studies; Environment; Environmental Health; Humans; Incidence; Leptospirosis; Leptospirosis - epidemiology; Mathematical models; Meteorological Concepts; Meteorology; Municipalities; Natural disasters; Original Paper; Plant Physiology; Rainfall; Regression analysis; Regression models; Statistical analysis; Statistical models; Temperature; Water pollution; Colombia; Cities; Remote sensors; Rainfall; Temperature; Multilevel models; Time series; Incidence
• ISSN: 0020-7128; 1432-1254
• DOI: 10.1007/s00484-020-02028-2

Leptospirosis is a disease usually acquired by humans through water contaminated with the urine of rodents that comes into direct contact with the cutaneous lesions, eyes, or mucous membranes. The disease has an important environmental component associated with climatic conditions and natural disasters, such as floods. We analyzed the relationship between rainfall and temperature and the incidence of leptospirosis in the top 30 municipalities with the highest numbers of cases of the disease in the period of 2007 to 2016. It was an ecological study of the time series of cases of leptospirosis, rainfall, and temperature with lags of 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 weeks. A multilevel negative binomial regression model was implemented to evaluate the relationship between leptospirosis and both meteorological factors. In the 30 evaluated municipalities during the study period, a total of 5136 cases of leptospirosis were reported. According to the implemented statistical model, there was a positive association between the incidence of leptospirosis and rainfall with a lag of 1 week and a negative association with temperature with a lag of 4 weeks. Our results show the importance of short-term lags in rainfall and temperature for the occurrence of new cases of leptospirosis in Colombia.