Pathogen seasonality and links with weather in England and Wales: a big data time series analysis

Cherrie, Mark P. C.; Nichols, Gordon; Iacono, Gianni Lo; Sarran, Christophe; Hajat, Shakoor; Fleming, Lora E.

Weather can influence pathogen prevalence indirectly through exerting pressure on vector abundance. We found both dengue and Plasmodium falciparum had a seasonal pattern (although for dengue it was so weak that it was excluded at stage 1) and for the latter weak correlation with max temperature. This can be explained by rising temperatures increasing mosquito distributions and causing seasonal peaks in dengue virus and Plasmodium falciparum (i.e. the parasite responsible for cases of malaria) [27, 32] , in the countries where the infection was likely acquired. Other native vector-borne diseases were shown to be associated with weather in the current analysis. For example, Borrelia burgdoferi, which infects ticks and causes Lyme disease, had a strong correlation with sunshine. Borrelia burgdoferi infected tick distribution was previously shown to correlate with season and rainfall in Scotland [37] .