Resumen

SAEZ-SAEZ, Vidal; MARTINEZ, Jean; RUBIO-PALIS, Yasmín  y  DELGADO, Laura. Weekly evaluation of the relation of malaria to precipitation and air temperature in Paria Peninsula, Sucre State, Venezuela. Bol Mal Salud Amb [online]. 2007, vol.47, n.2, pp.177-189. ISSN 1690-4648.

Precipitation and air temperature are important factors that affect the occurrence of malaria cases in Sucre State, Venezuela. Because of the malaria transmission dynamics, the analyses of the relationship between climatic variables and incidence of the disease have to be examined in a period shorter than one month. For this reason we quantified such relations weekly in the sub-region of Paria Peninsula, Sucre State. To understand the behavior of rainfall and air temperature, we made two analyses: the first of these was a characterization of the long series (historical) which then served to compare the reports from the years 2002 and 2003. The second analysis matched the characterization of precipitation and air temperature during the years 2002 and 2003. For this latter period, we used rainfall and air temperature data on a weekly basis (Weekly Parasite Index). For this element, we added the daily reports for one week because the median values could not describe the variability and its relation with WPI, and compared them with the historic reports for 1970-2003). Finally this climatic series was analyzed with reports of malaria by multiple regression, considering for the series lags of up to 4 weeks. All the coefficients of regression (R) were statistically significant. The lag or displacement of one week presented the highest values of R, describing 30 and 47.7% of the malaria cases in relation to rainfall and air temperature. We conclude that these variables achieve describing an important part of the variability of observed malaria in those two years in Paria Peninsula, Sucre State; we suggest increasing the number of temporal observations and the evaluation of other entomological parameters (abundance and longevity of the vector and location and quality of habitat sites) and their relation with these climatic variables for the purpose of deepening knowledge of these environmental factors which affect malaria and contributing to the design of an early warning system for preventing epidemics in Sucre State.

Palabras clave : malaria; weekly rainfall; weekly temperature; Sucre State; Venezuela.