Partnering with the Met Office

Seasonal climate forecasting of infectious diseases

EUROBRISA is a research project between European and Brazilian organisations aiming to share knowledge and expertise to improve seasonal climate forecasting for South America. Good quality seasonal forecasts are essential for local South American governments to plan for changes in climate, which can occur frequently due to the heavy influence of the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The Leverhulme network project, EUROBRISA, is led by Professor David Stephenson at the University of Exeter and involves the Met Office as one of the key European partners.

As part of EUROBRISA, the University of Exeter and the Met Office have collaborated on a PhD research project which looked at one of the potential important applications of a seasonal climate forecast – predicting outbreaks of dengue. This is a widely occurring disease transmitted by mosquitoes, which – according to the World Health Organization – affects on average more than 50 million people globally each year.

The PhD project, supervised by Professor Stephenson and Professor Bailey at the University of Exeter and Dr Richard Graham at the Met Office, has developed and tested new statistical methodologies for the prediction of dengue in Brazil based on climate information. Rachel Lowe, who carried out the research for the PhD, said: “The basic idea was to see if a good quality seasonal climate forecast could be used to predict dengue epidemics, which could help governments prepare in advance to save lives and minimise impacts.

“To establish whether this was possible, we had to see if there was a connection between outbreaks of dengue and climate. We had to start by analysing all of the past data and develop a statistical model to see where there were links and how strong they were.”

Work involved a number of collaborative visits to Brazil to collect data and tap into expert knowledge on climate, dengue transmission, and current public health monitoring for dengue in Brazil.

This project has also led to exciting new visualisation techniques for communicating probabilistic seasonal forecasts. This research, led by Dr Tim Jupp at the University of Exeter, will shortly be submitted for publication in the Proceedings of the Royal Society.

For more details see the Eurobrisa website.