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.

There is evidence to suggest that weather is a driver of faecal-oral infectious diseases, through the increased survival of pathogens in the environment [3] . In addition to Rotavirus, which have enhanced survival at low temperature, the current analysis has identified that Aeromonas (A.sp, A. hydrophilia, A. sobria), Bacillus (B. cereus, B. sp), Coxsackie B, Cryptosporidium sp., Giardia lamblia, Listeria monocytogenes and Shigella sonnei may flourish under higher temperatures. Respiratory infections transmitted by aerosols are similarly influenced by changes in weather. The high correlations between Astrovirus, HMPV, Mycoplasma pneumoniae, Moraxella catarrhalis, Neisseria meningitidis and RSV, and weather may be due to low temperatures causing increased survival and transmission or it could be lower levels of UV in the darker winter months. Further work is needed to determine if specific weather thresholds control seasonality.