Dynamics of dengue outbreaks in gangetic West Bengal: A trend and time series analysis

Dengue is a vector-borne viral disease which is one of the major causes of public health problem in India, and its control is often the major challenges of municipal bodies in the country, especially in West Bengal. The previous outbreaks of the disease can be used to forecast the future occurrence and burden, so that authorities may optimize the available resources in order to contain and minimize the impact.

Weekly disease outbreak data were extracted from Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme website and arranged as monthly data. Mann-Kendall test was used to determine the significance of the disease trends in various districts of Gangetic West Bengal. Time series analysis was done by using Seasonal ARIMA method to predict the number of Dengue outbreak cases for the year 2020.

Murshidabad was the only district of Gangetic West Bengal that had a significant upward Dengue cases outbreak trend. Nadia had a downward trend but it was not statistically significant. Model SARIMA (1,0,0) (1,0,0) ₁₂ was chosen to forecast the Dengue outbreak cases which showed that the cases might start from the month of June, peak in August and wane off in October 2020. However, this prediction was not significant.

Gangetic West Bengal might experience similar dengue cases as the previous year, but their numbers would be low. Only the district of Murshidabad would have upward trend. Knowledge in advance about periods of disease occurrence may enable health authorities to initiate control measures during the start of the outbreak season.