The rubber plantation environment and Lassa fever epidemics in Liberia, 2008-2012: a spatial regression.
Spat Spatiotemporal Epidemiol
; 11: 163-74, 2014 Oct.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-25457605
ABSTRACT
As Lassa fever continues to be a public health challenge in West Africa, it is critical to produce good maps of its risk pattern for use in active surveillance and control intervention. We identified eight spatial features related to the rubber plantation environment and used them as explanatory variables for Lassa fever (LF) outbreaks on the Uniroyal Liberian Agricultural Company (LAC) rubber plantation environment in Grand Bassa County, Liberia. We computed classical and spatial lag regression models on all spatial features, including proximity of residential camp to rubber tree-edge, main road in the plantation, LAC hospital, rice farmland, household refuse dump, human population density, post-harvest storage density of rice and density of rodent deterrent on rice storage. We found significant (p=0.0024) spatial autocorrelation between LF cases and the spatial features we have considered. We concluded that the rubber plantation environment influenced Mastomys species' breeding and transmission of Lassa virus along spatial scale to humans. The risk factors identified in this study offered a baseline for more effective surveillance and control of LF in the post-civil conflict Liberia.
Palavras-chave
Texto completo:
1
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Agricultura
/
Epidemias
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Análise Espacial
/
Febre Lassa
Tipo de estudo:
Observational_studies
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Prognostic_studies
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Risk_factors_studies
Limite:
Humans
País como assunto:
Africa
Idioma:
En
Ano de publicação:
2014
Tipo de documento:
Article