The spatiotemporal transmission of dengue and its driving mechanism: A case study on the 2014 dengue outbreak in Guangdong, China.

Dengue transmission is a complex spatiotemporal process with hidden interactions between hosts, vectors, and viruses as well as environment. This study aims to identify the transmission patterns and the driving mechanism that contributed to the dengue epidemics occurred in Guangdong Province of China in 2014. Based on the city-specific epidemiological, meteorological, demographic and geographic data, we first performed wavelet analysis and then integrated the key dynamics (i.e., mosquito population dynamics, human movement, virus transmission, and parameter estimation) into a transmission model. Using these methods, we found a clear temporal sequence and correlation of dengue transmission between cities, and such relationship is associated with socioeconomic factors. We further obtained the specific component of dengue incidence data in each city, and presented the underlying infectivity networks for characterizing how dengue transmits from one location to another. The results showed that the communication of in-out infections with Guangzhou and Foshan could be responsible for the large-scale diffusion of dengue epidemics in Guangdong in 2014. Our findings can offer new insights into how to improve the predictability and risk assessment of dengue transmission.