TITLE:
Malaria and Climate Variability in Two Northern Stations of Nigeria
AUTHORS:
Ademola Akinbobola, Sunusi Hamisu
KEYWORDS:
Malaria, Weather, Climate, Plasmodium, Time Series
JOURNAL NAME:
American Journal of Climate Change,
Vol.11 No.2,
June
17,
2022
ABSTRACT: Malaria is a significant public health problem in Nigeria. The prevalence of malaria incidence across regions in Nigeria can be linked to climatic and environmental factors. This study explored what and how local weather/climate variability impact on malaria prevalence in Jos, North central and Kano, North western Nigeria. Data on monthly malaria cases from 1997 to 2018 were obtained from the hospital archives and consulting room record books. The Kano hospital is the Abdullahi Wase Specialist Hospital, a standard state government hospital that is situated in the Centre of the city. Also, same data were collected from the Plateau state general hospital, Jos. Local weather factors including rainfall, relative humidity, minimum and maximum temperature were considered in the analyses. Time series analyses were applied to evaluate the associations of malaria incidence with weather/climate factors. The results showed that malaria incidence was associated with local weather factors in Jos and Kano but at different lag times and in directions. The results reveal local weather factors strongly affect malaria occurrence in Jos than Kano. The location-specific approaches seem to be one of the keys to minimizing the potential impacts of climate change and maximizing the effects of control and prevention programs in these stations. Therefore, for effective malaria control, interventions could be synchronized with some important climatic predictors of the disease for greater impact and reduce the prevalence of the disease especially in Jos.