Laís Picinini Freitas, Dirk Douwes-Schultz, Alexandra M Schmidt, Brayan Ávila Monsalve, Jorge Emilio Salazar Flórez, César García-Balaguera, Berta N Restrepo, Gloria I Jaramillo-Ramirez, Mabel Carabali, Kate Zinszer
Zika, a viral disease transmitted to humans by Aedes mosquitoes, emerged in the Americas in 2015, causing large-scale epidemics. Colombia alone reported over 72,000 Zika cases between 2015 and 2016. Using national surveillance data from 1121 municipalities over 70 weeks, we identified sociodemographic and environmental factors associated with Zika's emergence, re-emergence, persistence, and transmission intensity in Colombia. We fitted a zero-state Markov-switching model under the Bayesian framework, assuming Zika switched between periods of presence and absence according to spatially and temporally varying probabilities of emergence/re-emergence (from absence to presence) and persistence (from presence to presence)...
May 1, 2024: Scientific Reports