Investigating dengue outbreak in Tamil Nadu, India

Abstract

Dengue has been indigenous to India in last decade. There was a major outbreak in the state of Tamil Nadu in 2017. Here, we investigate the dengue outbreak in parts of Tamil Nadu, India. Dengue case data were obtained from the hospital records in the Chennai district of Tamil Nadu. The data were analyzed using statistical approaches such as correlation and regression. The result shows that the dengue outbreak in Tamil Nadu during 2017 was due to the population, water stagnation, and sewage, whereas the human activity weren’t the cause of the dengue outbreak which caused 65 deaths. Male constitutes 54.71% whereas female accounted for 45.29% of dengue incidence in Tamil Nadu, majority deaths were children aged less than 10 years due to the outbreak of Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever (DHF). This investigation was evaluated using mathematical regressions, Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) regression outperformed Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression model in detecting dengue incidence. This investigation can be strengthened by implementing a surveillance system in parts of Tamil Nadu before an outbreak.