Assessing the impacts of rainfall on cholera cases in Kasese district from 2009 to 2015

Abstract

Cholera is an acute diarrheal infection caused by ingestion of food or water contaminated with the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. Kasese district has been a hotspot cholera in Uganda over the past years and outbreaks were recorded from mostly Bwera sub-county. Rainfall is the meteorological phenomenon that has the greatest impact on cholera outbreaks and to predict rainfall makes it possible to take preventive and mitigation measures in case of an outbreak especially its extremes. The purpose of this study was to find out the impact of rainfall on cholera cases in Kasese district along with the temporal trends of cholera cases and rainfall in the district. Rainfall data and cholera cases data were collected as secondary data and Mann Kendall trend test was used for data analysis. The study found out that there were some cholera cases in Kasese were increasing during mostly the MAM rainfall season and that some cases were recorded even in the absence of rain in the month as well as having no cases at all in months with rainfall. Thus, the study shows that increasing rainfall leads to increasing cholera cases in Kasese district. Therefore, the prediction of rainfall can provide information to mitigate the spread of cholera disease which will eventually reduce the outbreaks. Another way of avoiding cholera outbreaks is through encouraging people to drink boiled or treated water from any water source.