South-East Asia Regional Conference on Epidemiology

<strong>South</strong>-<strong>East</strong> <strong>Asia</strong> <strong>Regional</strong> <strong>Conference</strong> on Epidemiology | 259
The temperature and rainfall had a correlation with the number of cases of diarrhoea and malaria,
but in the time-series analysis, none of these were significant predictors of malaria and diarrhoea.
Access to the data for non-climatic factors, such as population size, immunization coverage and the
malaria control programme, was difficult. It was not possible to incorporate this information in a
monthly data format. Other non-climatic data like water supply, sanitation and hygiene were also not
available due to lack of a reporting system. Actually, none in the villages of the district had data on
piped water supply, sanitation and hygiene.
The conclusion of the study was that there was only a minimum change in climate from 1999 to 2008
but there was an increase in the number of malaria and diarrhoea cases during the same period. There
was a positive correlation between the maximum-minimum temperatures, rainfall and occurrence of
diarrhoea and malaria with statistical significance (Tables 1 & 2). In the time-series analysis, none of
the climatic variables was found to be a significant predictor of malaria and diarrhoea.
Table 1: Correlation between climatic variables and malaria, Jhapa district, Nepal
Climate variables Pearson correlation p-value
Maximum temperature .284 .002
Minimum temperature .338