Environmental Predictors of Seasonal Influenza Epidemics across Temperate and Tropical Climates

Human influenza infections exhibit a strong seasonal cycle in temperate regions. Recent laboratory and epidemiological evidence suggests that low specific humidity conditions facilitate the airborne survival and transmission of the influenza virus in temperate regions, resulting in annual winter epidemics. However, this relationship is unlikely to account for the epidemiology of influenza in tropical and subtropical regions where epidemics often occur during the rainy season or transmit year-round without a well-defined season. We assessed the role of specific humidity and other local climatic variables on influenza virus seasonality by modeling epidemiological and climatic information from 78 study sites…

• UD
  U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
• UD
  U.S. Department of Homeland Security
• NI
  National Institutes of Health

  Award: 1U54GM088558
• EI
  Earth Institute, Columbia University
• SA
  Science and Technology Directorate
• FI
  Fogarty International Center