Relationships between climate and year-to-year variability in meningitis outbreaks: A case study in Burkina Faso and Niger

Pascal Yaka¹ , Benjamin Sultan² , Hélène Broutin³^,4 , Serge Janicot² , Solenne Philippon¹ and Nicole Fourquet¹

¹ProdiG, UMR 8586, 2 rue Valette, 75005, Paris, France

²IRD – LOCEAN/IPSL (UR 182, UMR 7159 IRD-CNRS-UPMC) Université Pierre et Marie Curie, 4 place Jussieu, 75252, Paris, cedex 05, France

³G.E.M.I, UMR CNRS/IRD 2724, Equipe ≪ Evolution des Systèmes Symbiotiques ≫ Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), 911 Avenue Agropolis, BP 64501 34394, Montpellier ,Cedex 5, France

⁴Current address: Division of International Epidemiology and Population Studies, Fogarty International Center, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA

author email corresponding author email

International Journal of Health Geographics 2008, 7:34doi:10.1186/1476-072X-7-34


Published:	2 July 2008

Abstract

Background

Every year, West Africa is afflicted with Meningococcal Meningitis (MCM) disease outbreaks. Although the seasonal and spatial patterns of disease cases have been shown to be linked to climate, the mechanisms responsible for these patterns are still not well identified.

Results

A statistical analysis of annual incidence of MCM and climatic variables has been performed to highlight the relationships between climate and MCM for two highly afflicted countries: Niger and Burkina Faso. We found that disease resurgence in Niger and in Burkina Faso is likely to be partly controlled by the winter climate through enhanced Harmattan winds. Statistical models based only on climate indexes work well in Niger showing that 25% of the disease variance from year-to-year in this country can be explained by the winter climate but fail to represent accurately the disease dynamics in Burkina Faso.

Conclusion

This study is an exploratory attempt to predict meningitis incidence by using only climate information. Although it points out significant statistical results it also stresses the difficulty of relating climate to interannual variability in meningitis outbreaks.