Effects of climatological parameters in modeling and forecasting seasonal influenza transmission in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire.
In temperate regions, influenza epidemics occur in the winter and correlate with certain climatological parameters. In African tropical regions, the effects of climatological parameters on influenza epidemics are not well defined. This study aims to identify and model the effects of climatological parameters on seasonal influenza activity in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire.



We studied the effects of weekly rainfall, humidity, and temperature on laboratory-confirmed influenza cases in Abidjan from 2007 to 2010. We used the Box-Jenkins method with the autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) process to create models using data from 2007-2010 and to assess the predictive value of best model on data from 2011 to 2012.



The weekly number of influenza cases showed significant cross-correlation with certain prior weeks for both rainfall, and relative humidity. The best fitting multivariate model (ARIMAX (2,0,0) _RF) included the number of influenza cases during 1-week and 2-weeks prior, and the rainfall during the current week and 5-weeks prior. The performance of this model showed an increase of >3 % for Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) and 2.5 % for Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) compared to the reference univariate ARIMA (2,0,0). The prediction of the weekly number of influenza cases during 2011-2012 with the best fitting multivariate model (ARIMAX (2,0,0) _RF), showed that the observed values were within the 95 % confidence interval of the predicted values during 97 of 104 weeks.



Including rainfall increases the performances of fitted and predicted models. The timing of influenza in Abidjan can be partially explained by rainfall influence, in a setting with little change in temperature throughout the year. These findings can help clinicians to anticipate influenza cases during the rainy season by implementing preventive measures.
Department of Epidemiology, Institut National d'Hygiène Publique, BP V 14, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. jeanandersonk@yahoo.fr.|Training and Research Unit of Medical Sciences, Department of Public Health and Community Medicine, Félix Houphouët-Boigny University, BP V 34, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. jeanandersonk@yahoo.fr.
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N'gattia
Department of Epidemiology, Institut National d'Hygiène Publique, BP V 14, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire.
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Coulibaly
Influenza Division, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1600 Clifton Road, Atlanta, GA, 30329-4027, USA.
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Nzussouo
Department of Virology, Respiratory Diseases, Pasteur Institute, 01 BP 490, Abidjan 01, Côte d'Ivoire.
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Kadjo
Department of Epidemiology, Institut National d'Hygiène Publique, BP V 14, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire.
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Chérif
Department of Epidemiology, Institut National d'Hygiène Publique, BP V 14, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire.|Training and Research Unit of Medical Sciences, Department of Public Health and Community Medicine, Félix Houphouët-Boigny University, BP V 34, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire.
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Traoré
Department of Virology, Respiratory Diseases, Pasteur Institute, 01 BP 490, Abidjan 01, Côte d'Ivoire.
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Kouakou
Department of Epidemiology, Institut National d'Hygiène Publique, BP V 14, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire.|Department of Public Health and Community Medicine, Alassane Ouattara University, BP V 18, Bouaké, Côte d'Ivoire.
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Kouassi
Department of Epidemiology, Institut National d'Hygiène Publique, BP V 14, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire.|Training and Research Unit of Medical Sciences, Department of Public Health and Community Medicine, Félix Houphouët-Boigny University, BP V 34, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire.
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Ekra
Department of Epidemiology, Institut National d'Hygiène Publique, BP V 14, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire.|Training and Research Unit of Medical Sciences, Department of Public Health and Community Medicine, Félix Houphouët-Boigny University, BP V 34, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire.
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Dagnan
Influenza Division, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1600 Clifton Road, Atlanta, GA, 30329-4027, USA.
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Williams
Department of Epidemiology, Institut National d'Hygiène Publique, BP V 14, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire.|Training and Research Unit of Medical Sciences, Department of Public Health and Community Medicine, Félix Houphouët-Boigny University, BP V 34, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire.
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Tiembré
D001499:Bayes Theorem; D007560:Cote d'Ivoire / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D005544:Forecasting; D006801:Humans; D006813:Humidity; D007251:Influenza, Human / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000635:transmission; D008297:Male; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D011891:Rain; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012621:Seasons; D013696:Temperature
Abidjan; Climatological parameters; Influenza; Modeling