Modelling spatiotemporal patterns of visceral leishmaniasis incidence in two endemic states in India using environment, bioclimatic and demographic data, 2013 –2022

by Swaminathan Subramanian, Rajendran Uma Maheswari, Gopalakrishnan Prabavathy, Mashroor Ahmad Khan, Balan Brindha, Adinarayanan Srividya, Ashwani Kumar, Manju Rahi, Emily S. Nightingale, Graham F. Medley, Mary M. Cameron, Nupur Roy, Purushothaman Jambulingam BackgroundAs of 2021, the National Kala-azar Elimination Programme (NKAEP) in India has achieved visceral leishmaniasis (VL) elimination (93% and 99% coverage probability (proportion of observations falling inside 95% Bayesian credible interval for the predicted number of VL cases per month) during the training and testing periods. PIT (probability integral transform) histograms confirmed consistency between prediction and observation for the test period. Forecasting for 2021 –2023 showed that the annual VL incidence is likely to exceed elimination threshold in 16–18 blocks in 4 districts of Jharkhand and 33–38 blocks in 10 districts of Bihar. The risk of VL in non-endemic neighbouring blocks of both Bihar and Jharkhand are less than 0.5 during the training and tes t periods, and for 2021–2023, the probability that the risk greater than 1 is negligible (P
Source: PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases - Category: Tropical Medicine Authors: Source Type: research