Predicting the Dengue Epidemic in Guangzhou, China by Meteorological Parameter Methods

This study was aimed to determine dengue season, and further establish a prediction model by meteorological methods. The dengue and meteorological data were collected from Guangdong Meteorological Bureau and Guangdong Provincial Center for Disease Prevention and Control, respectively. We created a sliding accumulated temperature method to accurately calculate the beginning and ending day of dengue season. Probabilistic Forecast model was derived under comprehensive consideration of various weather processes including typhoon, rainstorm, and so on. We found: 1) The dengue fever season enters when effective accumulated temperature of a continuing 45 days (T45) ≥0 °C, and it finishes when effective accumulated temperature of a continuing 6 days (T6) <0 °C. 2) A Probabilistic Forecast Model for dengue epidemic was established with good forecast effects, which were verified by the actual incidence of dengue in Guangzhou. The Probabilistic Forecast Model provides markedly improved forecasting techniques for dengue prediction. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. ### Funding Statement The study was supported by China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2018M633254). ### Author Declarations All relevant ethical guidelines have been followed; any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained and details of the IRB/oversight body are included in the manuscript. Yes All necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived. Yes I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance). Yes I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines and uploaded the relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material as supplementary files, if applicable. Yes The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author (Jin Bu, dr.jinbu@gmail.com) upon reasonable request.