ArticleEpidemiology and infection2020
Large-scale Lassa fever outbreaks in Nigeria: quantifying the association between disease reproduction number and local rainfall.
Article in Epidemiology and infection, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Assessing the Environmental Drivers of Lassa Fever in West Africa: A Systematic Review.Viruses · 2025Pooled it
- Early Detection and Surveillance of Infectious Disease Outbreaks in Nigeria : Integrating Nigerian Pidgin English (NPE) into the EPIWATCHJournal of medical systems · 2026Article
- Mapping the scientific landscape of Lassa virus: a 55-year bibliometric study (1970-2025).Science in One Health · 2026Article
- Establishment of a Lassa Fever Specimen Biobank in Nigeria.The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene · 2025Article
- Drivers of Lassa fever in an endemic area of southwestern Nigeria (2017-2021): An epidemiological study.PloS one · 2025Article
- Deciphering the enigma of Lassa virus transmission dynamics and strategies for effective epidemic control through awareness campaigns and rodenticides.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Modelling seasonality of Lassa fever incidences and vector dynamics in Nigeria.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2023Article
- Understanding the transmission pathways of Lassa fever: A mathematical modeling approach.Infectious Disease Modelling · 2023Article
- Modeling the Lassa fever outbreak synchronously occurring with cholera and COVID-19 outbreaks in Nigeria 2021: A threat to Global Health Security.PLOS global public health · 2023Article
- COVID-19 and Lassa fever in Nigeria: A deadly alliance?International journal of infectious diseases : IJID : official publication of the International Society for Infectious Diseases · 2022Article
- Epidemiological trends of Lassa fever in Nigeria, 2018-2021.PloS one · 2022Article
- Geographical drivers and climate-linked dynamics of Lassa fever in Nigeria.Nature communications · 2021Article
- A seasonal model to assess intervention strategies for preventing periodic recurrence of Lassa fever.Heliyon · 2021Article
- Infection pattern, case fatality rate and spread of Lassa virus in Nigeria.BMC infectious diseases · 2021Article
- Forecasting the final disease size: comparing calibrations of Bertalanffy-Pütter models.Epidemiology and infection · 2020Article
- Predicting COVID-19 spread in the face of control measures in West Africa.Mathematical biosciences · 2020Article
- Modelling the Measles Outbreak at Hong Kong International Airport in 2019: A Data-Driven Analysis on the Effects of Timely Reporting and Public Awareness.Infection and drug resistance · 2020Article
- A Methodology for Determining Which Diseases Warrant Care in a High-Level Containment Care Unit.Viruses · 2019Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Lassa fever (LF) is increasingly recognised as an important rodent-borne viral haemorrhagic fever presenting a severe public health threat to sub-Saharan West Africa. In 2017-18, LF caused an unprecedented epidemic in Nigeria and the situation was worsening in 2018-19. This work aims to study the epidemiological features of epidemics in different Nigerian regions and quantify the association between reproduction number (R) and state rainfall. We quantify the infectivity of LF by the reproduction numbers estimated from four different growth models: the Richards, three-parameter logistic, Gompertz and Weibull growth models. LF surveillance data are used to fit the growth models and estimate the Rs and epidemic turning points (τ) in different regions at different time periods. Cochran's Q test is further applied to test the spatial heterogeneity of the LF epidemics. A linear random-effect regression model is adopted to quantify the association between R and state rainfall with various lag terms. Our estimated Rs for 2017-18 (1.33 with 95% CI 1.29-1.37) was significantly higher than those for 2016-17 (1.23 with 95% CI: (1.22, 1.24)) and 2018-19 (ranged from 1.08 to 1.36). We report spatial heterogeneity in the Rs for epidemics in different Nigerian regions. We find that a one-unit (mm) increase in average monthly rainfall over the past 7 months could cause a 0.62% (95% CI 0.20%-1.05%)) rise in R. There is significant spatial heterogeneity in the LF epidemics in different Nigerian regions. We report clear evidence of rainfall impacts on LF epidemics in Nigeria and quantify the impact.
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