REMOTE SENSING AND GIS FOR DENGUE EPIDEMIC RISK MAPPING IN LAHORE, PAKISTAN

Abstract

Over the last two decades, dengue fever has become a major mosquito borne disease in Pakistan. Dengue outbreaks were reported in the major cities of Pakistan especially in Lahore where the number of dengue cases increased radically in 2011 making it the worst epidemic in the national history. It had been observed that dengue virus population increases in specific climatic conditions and there were some Environmental Factors EFs that promoted its growth. The objective of this study was to propose an advance approach to identify the risk prone areas by linking these factors with dengue outbreaks using satellite data and Geographical Information System (GIS) techniques. Information provided in terms of spatial and temporal distribution patterns of dengue fever outbreaks in Lahore and its relationships with EFs was helpful in developing dengue risk map. The results showed that most of the cases occurred in those areas which received heavy rainfall R2 ranging from 0.66 to 0.8 followed by high temperature and low Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI).