Análise espacial e temporal da Chikungunya no estado do Ceará nos anos de 2016 e 2017

Abstract

Chikungunya is an arbovirus caused by an alfavirus belonging to the Togaviridae family. The main characteristic of the disease is the severe and disabling arthralgia present in the affected patients. Some factors may lead to its chronification. It was first reported in the year 1952 in Tanzania, Africa. And since then there have been epidemics spread in many countries. In 2010 in Brazil the first cases imported from Chikungunya were registered and in 2014 the first indigenous cases arose. Since then it has spread explosively throughout the country, with a higher concentration of cases in the Northeast. In Ceará in 2016 and 2017 were recorded more than 102,000 confirmed cases of Chikungunya. As a tool to observe and analyze the spatial distribution and temporal trend of events, Geoprocessing, Geographic Information Systems and Spatial Statistics are used in order to detect possible patterns of spatial and temporal behavior of these events. OBJECTIVE: To characterize the spatial and temporal patterns of Chikungunya in the state of Ceará in 2016 and 2017. METHOD: The study has two stages. The first stage consisted of analyzing the temporal trend of Chikungunya cases, which calculated the weekly incidence coefficients of the cases, which were considered as dependent variables, and the epidemiological weeks were considered the independent variables, allowing the identification of the best fit between the points. For this analysis we used Poisson Regression Model in the Joinpoint Regression Program. The second stage consisted of analyzing the spatial distribution of the incidence of chikungunya in Ceará. Terraview® will be used for this analysis and map visualization was performed in ArcGIS®. The smoothing of the indicators was performed through the Moran Index (I) and verification of spatial autocorrelation. RESULTS: There was a concentration of cases with peaks in the epidemiological weeks 5 to 25 and, after this period, there was a reduction. Spatial distribution patterns were evidenced and spatial aggregates from high frequency municipalities were identified for the incidence rate of confirmed cases of chikungunya in the state of Ceará in the 2016 and 2017 epidemics. CONCLUSION: The cases, in both epidemic waves, were distributed in heterogeneously throughout the state of Ceará, evidencing that throughout the state there are favorable conditions for the incidence of cases and a population susceptible to chikungunya.