Seasonality on the life cycle of Aedes aegypti mosquito and its effects on dengue outbreaks

TL;DR

This study investigates how seasonal variations in temperature and rainfall influence the life cycle of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes and their impact on dengue outbreaks, emphasizing the importance of low temperature seasonality.

Contribution

It introduces a dynamical model integrating temperature and precipitation effects on mosquito development and dengue transmission, applied to Mexican regions.

Findings

Low temperature seasonality is a key driver of dengue outbreaks.

Asynchronous effects of temperature and rainfall can suppress disease prevalence.

The model helps identify mechanisms underlying regional dengue dynamics.

Abstract

Dengue is a vector-borne disease transmitted by the mosquito Aedes aegypti. It has been observed that its incidence is strongly influenced by temperature and other abiotic factors like rainfall and humidity. In this work we compare the effects of seasonality in temperature that affect the entomological parameters of the mosquito with precipitation that affects the hatchery capacity. We also analyze its joint action using a dynamical model for the life cycle of Aedes aegypti and historical weather data from 8 regions of Mexico. We found that the joint action of different mechanisms can enhance the prevalence of the disease, but also inhibit it when they act in an asynchronous way. We found that for the studied regions, the seasonality of the low temperature rather than mean temperature is the main driving force of Dengue outbreaks. We also analyzed the role of the diapause in these kinds of outbreaks. The methodology developed here can be used to discover the underlying mechanism of Dengue outbreaks in different regions and thus help to apply targeted control measures.