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. 2024 Aug 3;10(16):e35463.
doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e35463. eCollection 2024 Aug 30.

Association between detection rate of norovirus GII and climatic factors in the Northwest Amazon region

Nathália Alves Araujo de Almeida  1   2 , Yan Cardoso Pimenta  1   3 , Flavia Freitas de Oliveira Bonfim  1   2 , Nicole Carolina Araujo de Almeida  1 , José Paulo Gagliardi Leite  1 , Alberto Ignacio Olivares Olivares  4   5 , Johan Nordgren  6 , Marcia Terezinha Baroni de Moraes  1   3   2
Affiliations

Association between detection rate of norovirus GII and climatic factors in the Northwest Amazon region

Nathália Alves Araujo de Almeida et al. Heliyon. .

Abstract

Worldwide, approximately one fifth of all cases of diarrhea are associated with norovirus, mainly in children, with a defined seasonality in temperate climates, but seasonal dynamics are less known in tropical climates. The objective was to investigate the impact of external clinical, epidemiological, and climatic factors on norovirus detection rates in samples from children under 5 years of age from Roraima, the Amazon region of Brazil. A total of 941 samples were included. According to climatic factors, we observed correlations between external climatic factors and weekly positivity rates, where temperature (P = 0.002), relative humidity (P = 0.0005), absolute humidity (P < 0.0001) and wind speed had the strongest effect (P = 0.0006). The Brazilian Amazon region presents a typical and favorable scenario for the persistence, expansion, and distribution of viral gastroenteritis.

Importance: This study is important as it will serve as a basis for studies carried out in Brazil and Latin American countries on the epidemiological importance, seasonality, climate change, antigenic diversity, among other factors in the circulation of gastroenteric virus.

Keywords: Amazonic region; Climate; Humidity; Norovirus; Viral gastroenteritis; Weather/epidemiology.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Weekly (each bar refers to 1 week) incidence of various gastrointestinal viruses, detected with real-time PCR. Total number of samples tested for month: 2016–October and November N = 16 each; December N = 17; 2017–January N = 33, February N = 62, March N = 84, April and August N = 120 each, May N = 93, June N = 20, July N = 53, September N = 70, October N = 36; 2021–May N = 72, June N = 114 and July N = 16.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Weekly positivity rate of norovirus infections (% right axis; red bars) according to weekly average external relative humidity (% right axis; blue line with a point), Absolute humidity (% right axis; green line), weekly average temperature (°C left axis; black line with a point) and Average weekly precipitation (mm³ left axis yellow line) throughout the study period (2016–2017 and 2021). The red marcation indicate that when there is a drop in relative humidity on a weekly basis, there is an increase in the incidence of norovirus.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Distribution of nororvirus prevalence in Municipalities in the Roraima (RR), Brazil. The prevalence of Norovirus is represented by the color changes on the map, where it goes from lighter to darker (higher prevalence) and the borders of the state of Roraima encompass other South American countries.
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