Cholera in Bangladesh

BACKGROUND: The mechanisms underlying the seasonality of cholera are still not fully understood, despite long-standing recognition of clear bimodal seasonality in Bangladesh. We aimed to quantify the contribution of climatic factors to seasonal variations in cholera incidence. METHODS: We investigated the association of seasonal and weather factors with the weekly number of cholera patients in Dhaka, Bangladesh, using Poisson regression models. The contribution of each weather factor (temperature and high and low rainfall) to seasonal variation was estimated as the mean over the study period (1983-2008) for each week of the year of each weather term. Fractions of the number of cholera patients attributed to each weather factor, assuming all values were constant at their minimum risk levels throughout the…