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.