Urban Landscapes and Transmission Dynamics of Vector-borne Infections: Climate Drivers in Time and Space

Cities are becoming increasingly important centers for the transmission of climate-sensitive infectious diseases via mosquito vectors such as urban malaria and dengue. On the basis of retrospective surveillance records from cities in India, we address the role of climate variability in the population dynamics of these diseases, with an emphasis on problems of scale. With process-based models of transmission, we present evidence for an important role of relative humidity in malaria incidence at the aggregated level of the whole city. Temperature effects present instead localized hotspots. Dengue analyses similarly indicate localized effects of temperature at high spatial resolution, and underscore the need to understand the interplay of climate forcing with population density and socio-economic conditions. Hotspots for the persistence of the disease across seasons are highlighted.