Pin Wang1, William B Goggins2, Emily Y Y Chan3. 1. School of Public Health and Primary Care, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China. 2. School of Public Health and Primary Care, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China. Electronic address: wgoggins@cuhk.edu.hk. 3. Collaborating Centre for Oxford University and CUHK for Disaster and Medical Humanitarian Response, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Rotavirus and norovirus are infectious pathogens primarily affecting children under 5 years old. The impact of rainfall on diarrheal diseases remains inconclusive. This study aimed to evaluate the association between short-term variation in rainfall, temperature and humidity, and rotavirus and norovirus hospitalizations among young children in Hong Kong. METHODS: Generalized additive negative binomial regression models with distributed lag non-linear terms, were fit with daily counts of hospital admissions due to rotavirus and norovirus infection as the outcomes and daily total rainfall and other meteorological variables as predictors, adjusting for seasonality and trend. RESULTS: Generally, greater rainfall was associated with fewer rotavirus, but more norovirus hospitalizations. Extreme precipitation (99.5 mm, 99th percentile) was found to be associated with 0.40 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.20-0.79) and 1.93 (95% CI 1.21-3.09) times the risk of hospitalization due to rotavirus and norovirus infection respectively, relative to trace rainfall. Stronger associations were observed in winter for rotavirus and in summer for norovirus. The duration of association with rotavirus was notably longer than norovirus. Higher temperatures were found to be associated with fewer hospitalizations for both rotavirus and norovirus infection, while higher relative humidity was generally associated with more norovirus, but fewer rotavirus, hospitalizations. CONCLUSIONS: Both rotavirus and norovirus hospitalizations were strongly associated with recent precipitation variation but in opposite directions. With the introduction of the rotavirus vaccine norovirus is likely to become a greater threat than rotavirus and thus greater precipitation may become more clearly associated with more childhood diarrhea.
BACKGROUND: Rotavirus and norovirus are infectious pathogens primarily affecting children under 5 years old. The impact of rainfall on diarrheal diseases remains inconclusive. This study aimed to evaluate the association between short-term variation in rainfall, temperature and humidity, and rotavirus and norovirus hospitalizations among young children in Hong Kong. METHODS: Generalized additive negative binomial regression models with distributed lag non-linear terms, were fit with daily counts of hospital admissions due to rotavirus and norovirus infection as the outcomes and daily total rainfall and other meteorological variables as predictors, adjusting for seasonality and trend. RESULTS: Generally, greater rainfall was associated with fewer rotavirus, but more norovirus hospitalizations. Extreme precipitation (99.5 mm, 99th percentile) was found to be associated with 0.40 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.20-0.79) and 1.93 (95% CI 1.21-3.09) times the risk of hospitalization due to rotavirus and norovirus infection respectively, relative to trace rainfall. Stronger associations were observed in winter for rotavirus and in summer for norovirus. The duration of association with rotavirus was notably longer than norovirus. Higher temperatures were found to be associated with fewer hospitalizations for both rotavirus and norovirus infection, while higher relative humidity was generally associated with more norovirus, but fewer rotavirus, hospitalizations. CONCLUSIONS: Both rotavirus and norovirus hospitalizations were strongly associated with recent precipitation variation but in opposite directions. With the introduction of the rotavirus vaccine norovirus is likely to become a greater threat than rotavirus and thus greater precipitation may become more clearly associated with more childhood diarrhea.
Authors: José Victor Zambrana; Fausto Andres Bustos Carrillo; Sergio Ojeda; Brenda Lopez Mercado; Krista Latta; Amy Schiller; Guillermina Kuan; Aubree Gordon; Arthur Reingold; Eva Harris Journal: Am J Trop Med Hyg Date: 2022-06-15 Impact factor: 3.707
Authors: Akongnwi E Mugyia; Valentine N Ndze; Jane-Francis T K Akoachere; Hannah Browne; Angeline Boula; Paul Koki Ndombo; Jennifer L Cannon; Jan Vinjé; Lucy M Ndip Journal: J Med Virol Date: 2019-01-02 Impact factor: 2.327
Authors: Tomás R Bolaño-Ortiz; Yiniva Camargo-Caicedo; Salvador Enrique Puliafito; María Florencia Ruggeri; Sindy Bolaño-Diaz; Romina Pascual-Flores; Jorge Saturno; Sergio Ibarra-Espinosa; Olga L Mayol-Bracero; Elvis Torres-Delgado; Francisco Cereceda-Balic Journal: Environ Res Date: 2020-07-15 Impact factor: 6.498