Possible ramifications of climate variability on HPAI-H5N1 outbreak occurrence: Case study from the Menoufia, Egypt

Long endemicity of the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) H5N1 subtype in Egypt poses a lot of threats to public health. Contrary to what is previously known, outbreaks have been circulated continuously in the poultry sectors all year round without seasonality. These changes call the need for epidemiological studies to prove or deny the influence of climate variability on outbreak occurrence, which is the aim of this study. This work proposes a modern approach to examine the degree to which the HPAI-H5N1disease event is being influenced by climate variability as a potential risk factor using generalized estimating equations (GEEs). GEE model revealed that the effect of climate variability differs according to the timing of the outbreak occurrence. Temperature and relative humidity could have both positive and negative effects on disease events. During the cold seasons especially in the first quarter, higher minimum temperatures, consistently show higher risks of disease occurrence, because this condition stimulates viral activity, while lower minimum temperatures support virus survival in the other quarters of the year with the highest negative effect in the third quarter. On the other hand, relative humidity negatively affects the outbreak in the first quarter of the year as the humid weather does not support viral circulation, while the highest positive effect was found in the second quarter during which low humidity favors the disease event.