Climatic fuctuations and malaria transmission dynamics, prior to elimination, in Guna Yala, República de Panamá
Background: Malaria has historically been entrenched in indigenous populations of the República de Panamá. This scenario occurs despite the fact that successful methods for malaria elimination were developed during the creation of the Panamá Canal. Today, most malaria cases in the República de Pan...
| Autores Principales: | Amarilis Hurtado, Lisbeth, Calzada, José E., Rigg, Chystrie A., Castillo, Milagros, Chaves, Luis Fernando |
|---|---|
| Formato: | Artículo |
| Idioma: | Inglés |
| Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2022
|
| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: |
http://hdl.handle.net/11056/23091 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12936-018-2235-3 |
| Sumario: |
Background: Malaria has historically been entrenched in indigenous populations of the República de Panamá. This
scenario occurs despite the fact that successful methods for malaria elimination were developed during the creation
of the Panamá Canal. Today, most malaria cases in the República de Panamá afect the Gunas, an indigenous group,
which mainly live in autonomous regions of eastern Panamá. Over recent decades several malaria outbreaks have
afected the Gunas, and one hypothesis is that such outbreaks could have been exacerbated by climate change, especially by anomalous weather patterns driven by the EL Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO).
Results: Monthly malaria cases in Guna Yala (1998–2016) were autocorrelated up to 2 months of lag, likely refecting parasite transmission cycles between humans and mosquitoes, and cyclically for periods of 4 months that might
refect relapses of Plasmodium vivax, the dominant malaria parasite transmitted in Panamá. Moreover, malaria case
number was positively associated (P < 0.05) with rainfall (7 months of lag), and negatively with the El Niño 4 index
(15 months of lag) and the Normalized Diference Vegetation Index, NDVI (8 months of lag), the sign and magnitude
of these associations likely related to the impacts of weather patterns and vegetation on the ecology of Anopheles
albimanus, the main malaria vector in Guna Yala. Interannual cycles, of approximately 4-year periods, in monthly
malaria case numbers were associated with the El Niño 4 index, a climatic index associated with weather and vegetation dynamics in Guna Yala at seasonal and interannual time scales.
Conclusion: The results showed that ENSO, rainfall and NDVI were associated with the number of malaria cases in
Guna Yala during the study period. These results highlight the vulnerability of Guna populations to malaria, an infection sensitive to climate change, and call for further studies about weather impacts on malaria vector ecology, as well
as the association of malaria vectors with Gunas paying attention to their socio-economic conditions of poverty and
cultural diferences as an ethnic minority |
|---|