Abstract
Malaria is one of the most widespread communicable diseases in the southeast regions of Iran, particularly the Chabahar County. Although the outbreak of this disease is a climate-related phenomenon, a comprehensive analysis of the malaria-climate relationship has not yet been investigated in Iran. The aims of this study are as follows: a) analyzing the seasonal characteristics of the various species of the infection; b) differentiating between number of patients during El Niño and La Niña and also during the wet and dry years. The monthly malaria statistics collected from twelve health centers were firstly averaged into seasonal scale and then composited with the corresponding data of the ground-based meteorological records, Southern Oscillation Index (SOI), and the satellite-based rainfall data. The proper statistical tests were used to detect differences in the number of patients between El Niño and La Niña and also between the adopted wet and dry episodes. Infection rate from the highest to the lowest was associated with summer, autumn, spring, and winter, respectively. Plasmodium falciparum, P. vivax, and the other species were responsible for 22%, 75%, and 3% of the sickness, respectively. The outbreak of P. falciparum/P. vivax occurs during autumn/summer. Due to the malaria eradication programs in urban areas, infection statistics collected from the rural areas were found to be more climate-related than that of urban regions. For rural/urban areas, the infection statistics exhibited a significant decline/increase during El Niño episodes. In autumn, spring, and winter, the patient number has significantly increased/decreased during the dry/wet years, respectively. These relationships were, however, reversed in summer.
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Data availability
The datasets used and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
The study was supported by the office of Vice-chancellor for research of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences and also technically supported by Baluchistan University of Medical Sciences.
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Conceptualization: [G. R. Hatam and Nazemosadat, S. M. J; Methodology: [Shafiei, R. Ghaedamini, H; Nazemosadat, Z; Najjar2,M]; Formal analysis and investigation: [ G. R. Hatam and Nazemosadat, S. M. J ], Writing - original draft preparation: [Shafiei, R. Ghaedamini ]; Writing - review and editing: [G. R. Hatam and Nazemosadat, S. M. J]; Funding acquisition: [G. R. Hatam]; Resources: [G. R. Hatam, ]; Supervision: [G. R. Hatam and Nazemosadat, S. M. J].
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Appendices
Appendix 1
Table 1. Historical records of patient number for autumn, winter and spring and. The statistics of twelve health centers with lowest values of missed data are presented. The name of the stations are presented in the footnote of this Table.
Year | Station Number | |||||||||||
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | |
Autumn | ||||||||||||
2002 | 10 | 16 | 29 | 4 | 28 | 30 | 46 | 22 | - | 151 | 59 | 20 |
2003 | 5 | 35 | 76 | 11 | 31 | 115 | 96 | 70 | - | 174 | 41 | 57 |
2004 | 3 | 14 | 39 | 0 | 1 | 19 | 11 | 7 | 3 | 44 | 31 | 7 |
2005 | 26 | 22 | 84 | 4 | 7 | 37 | 20 | 14 | 12 | 102 | 25 | 16 |
2006 | 4 | 21 | 94 | 2 | 15 | 59 | 18 | 9 | 4 | 82 | 25 | 18 |
2007 | 10 | 28 | 53 | 5 | 2 | 30 | 53 | 12 | 4 | 30 | 8 | 11 |
2008 | 9 | 35 | 137 | 3 | 1 | 80 | 19 | 20 | 6 | 25 | 4 | 14 |
2009 | 0 | 12 | 49 | 1 | 5 | 20 | 1 | 6 | 2 | 12 | 8 | 1 |
2010 | 0 | 6 | 47 | 0 | 0 | 11 | 0 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 1 |
2011 | 2 | 18 | 21 | 3 | 2 | 8 | 2 | 0 | 4 | - | - | 5 |
Average | 7 | 21 | 63 | 3 | 9 | 41 | 27 | 16 | 4 | 69 | 23 | 15 |
Winter | ||||||||||||
2002 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
2003 | - | 1 | 7 | - | 2 | 3 | 3 | 1 | - | 27 | 4 | 4 |
2004 | - | 4 | 10 | - | 0 | 10 | 2 | 2 | - | 4 | 3 | 2 |
2005 | - | 0 | 2 | - | 0 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 |
2006 | - | 4 | 15 | - | 2 | 3 | 6 | 0 | 5 | 12 | 5 | 2 |
2007 | - | 4 | 3 | - | 1 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 10 | 8 | 4 |
2008 | - | 3 | 6 | - | 0 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 8 | 2 | 1 |
2009 | - | 3 | 7 | - | 1 | 5 | 0 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
2010 | - | 4 | 3 | - | 0 | 7 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 0 |
2011 | - | 1 | 1 | - | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | - | - | 0 |
Average | - | 3 | 6 | - | 1 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 9 | 3 | 2 |
Year | Station Number | |||||||||||
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | |
Spring | ||||||||||||
2002 | 3 | 6 | 10 | - | 14 | 12 | 4 | 1 | - | 62 | 10 | 6 |
2003 | 1 | 17 | 33 | - | 6 | 21 | 19 | 16 | - | 77 | 15 | 11 |
2004 | 9 | 30 | 85 | - | 11 | 46 | 32 | 23 | 6 | 79 | 29 | 31 |
2005 | 10 | 23 | 39 | - | 8 | 22 | 12 | 9 | 4 | 34 | 18 | 9 |
2006 | 1 | 12 | 20 | - | 6 | 13 | 7 | 3 | 3 | 22 | 10 | 4 |
2007 | 1 | 12 | 12 | - | 2 | 23 | 5 | 7 | 2 | 18 | 13 | 11 |
2008 | 4 | 23 | 26 | - | 9 | 22 | 27 | 8 | 2 | 23 | 10 | 8 |
2009 | 3 | 21 | 50 | - | 6 | 16 | 3 | 10 | 1 | 9 | 5 | 4 |
2010 | 2 | 12 | 29 | - | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 16 | 6 | 1 |
2011 | 0 | 4 | 10 | - | 0 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | - | - | 1 |
Average | 3 | 16 | 31 | - | 6 | 18 | 11 | 8 | 2 | 38 | 13 | 9 |
Appendix 2
Figure I. Spatial distribution of P. falciparum in winter.
Figure II. Spatial distribution of P. falciparum in spring.
Figure III. Spatial distribution of P. falciparum in summer.
Figure IV. Spatial distribution of P. vivax in winter.
Figure V. Spatial distribution of P. vivax in spring.
Figure VI. Spatial distribution of P. vivax in autumn.
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Nazemosadat, S.M.J., Shafiei, R., Ghaedamini, H. et al. Spatio-temporal variability of malaria infection in Chahbahar County, Iran: association with the ENSO and rainfall variability. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 41757–41775 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-18326-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-18326-0