Spatio-Temporal Pattern and Influencing Factors of Hemorrhagic Fever with Renal Syndrome (HFRS) in Hubei Province (China) between 2005 and 2014

Liang Ge; Youlin Zhao; Kui Zhou; Xiangming Mu; Haibo Yu; Yongfeng Wang; Ning Wang; Hong Fan; Liqiang Guo; XiXiang Huo

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0167836

Spatio-Temporal Pattern and Influencing Factors of Hemorrhagic Fever with Renal Syndrome (HFRS) in Hubei Province (China) between 2005 and 2014

PLoS One. 2016 Dec 28;11(12):e0167836. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0167836. eCollection 2016.

Authors

Liang Ge^{1

2}, Youlin Zhao³, Kui Zhou², Xiangming Mu⁴, Haibo Yu², Yongfeng Wang², Ning Wang⁵, Hong Fan¹, Liqiang Guo², XiXiang Huo⁶

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing, Wuhan University, Wuhan city, Hubei Province, PR China.
² Tianjin Institute of Surveying and Mapping, Tianjin city, PR China.
³ Business School of Hohai University, Nanjing city, Jiangsu Province, PR China.
⁴ School of Information Studies in University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee 2025 E Newpot Ave #NWQB, Milwaukee, WI, United States of America.
⁵ First Crust Deformation Monitoring and Application Center, China Earthquake administration, Tianjin city, PR China.
⁶ Hubei Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Wuhan, China.

Abstract

Hemorrhagic Fever with Renal Syndrome (HFRS) is considered as a globally distributed infectious disease, which results in many deaths annually in Hubei Province, China. The outbreak of HFRS is usually characterized with spatio-temporal heterogeneity and is seasonally distributed. Further, it might also be impacted by the influencing factors such as socio-economic and geographical environment. To better understand and predict the outbreak of HFRS in the Hubei Province, the spatio-temporal pattern and influencing factors were investigated in this study. Moran's I Index value was adopted in spatial global autocorrelation analysis to identify the overall spatio-temporal pattern of HFRS outbreak. Kulldorff scan statistical analysis was performed to further identify the changing trends of the clustering patterns of HFRS outbreak. Spearman's rank correlation analysis was used to explore the possible influencing factors on HFRS epidemics such as climate and geographic. The results demonstrated that HFRS outbreak in Hubei Province decreased from 2005 to 2012 in general while increasing slightly from 2012 to 2014. The spatial and temporal scan statistical analysis indicated that HFRS epidemic was temporally clustered in summer and autumn from 2005 to 2014 except 2008 and 2011. The seasonal epidemic pattern of HFRS in Hubei Province was characterized by a bimodal pattern (March to May and September to November) while peaks often occurring in the spring time. SEOV-type HFRS was presumed to influence more on the total number of HFRS incidence than HTNV-type HFRS do. The average humidity and human population density were the main influencing factors during these years. HFRS outbreaks were more in plains than in other areas of Hubei Province. We did not find that whether the terrain of the wetland (water system) plays a significant role in the outbreak of HFRS incidence. With a better understanding of rodent infection rate, socio-economic status and ecological environment characteristics, this study may help to reduce the outbreak of HFRS disease.

MeSH terms

China / epidemiology
Cluster Analysis
Disease Outbreaks / statistics & numerical data
Hemorrhagic Fever with Renal Syndrome / epidemiology*
Humans
Seasons
Spatio-Temporal Analysis*

Grants and funding

Funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 71503068,http://www.nsfc.gov.cn and Fundamental Research Funds in Key Research Areas for the Central Universities, No. 2015B09614; Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, No. 2014B15114 http://www.moe.edu.cn/. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.