Examining Malaria Case Rates in the Context of Climate in Ghana

Abstract: Ghana accounts for 2.2% of recorded global malaria cases and demonstrates particularly interesting interannual variability in case numbers over the last few decades. This raises the question: what is driving this variability? Here, we examine the potential role of climate variability in influencing the case numbers. Temperature (max, min, mean), rainfall and humidity data from weather stations in the three established climatic zones in Ghana (coastal, savannah, forest) are examined and compared with a new dataset of regional malaria cases rates from Ghana. At the annual scale, we identify significant relationships between malaria case rates and maximum temperature in the forest and savannah zones, and humidity in the forest and savannah zones. Future work will examine higher spatio-temporal resolution climate data and contextualise these data with information on policy interventions.

Biography: Information to follow soon