Title: Impact of increased temperature on malaria transmission in Burundi

Authors: Hermenegilde Nkurunziza, Jurgen Pilz

Addresses: Institute of Applied Pedagogy, Department of Mathematics, University of Burundi, Post Box 5368, Bujumbura, Burundi. ' Department of Statistics, University of Klagenfurt, Universitatstrasse 65-67, Klagenfurt 9020, Austria

Abstract: The focus in this paper is to assess whether the increase in (global) temperature would result in increase in malaria transmission in Burundi. The analysis carried out in this work exploits real data collected in Burundi, namely monthly rainfall, temperature and humidity data as well as monthly malaria morbidity data for the period 1996-2007. We propose a Bayesian Generalised Additive Model (GAM) to assess the impact of increase in temperature on malaria transmission. The results suggest that although malaria transmission is positively associated with minimum temperature and maximum humidity, increasing temperature in Burundi will not result in increasing malaria transmission.

Keywords: Burundi; malaria transmission; climate change; Bayesian GAM; generalised additive model; modelling; global warming; temperature rise; Burundi; rainfall; humidity; malaria morbidity data; precipitation; temperature increase.

DOI: 10.1504/IJGW.2011.038371

International Journal of Global Warming, 2011 Vol.3 No.1/2, pp.77 - 87

Published online: 29 Jan 2015 *

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