Epidemic features of seasonal influenza transmission among eight different climate zones in Gansu, China

Abstract Backgrounds Seasonal influenza remains epidemic globally with a substantial health burden. Understanding the transmission patterns and epidemic features of influenza may facilitate the improvement of preventive and control measures. This study aims to assess the epidemic features of influenza among different climate zones and identify high-risk zones across Gansu province, China. Methods We collected weekly influenza cases at county-level between 1st January 2012 and 31st December 2016, as well as climate zones classification shapefile data from Koppen-Geiger climate map. We compared the epidemic features (Frequency index (α), Duration index (β) and Intensity index (γ)) of influenza among different climate zones. Spatial cluster analysis was used to examine the high-risk areas of transmission of influenza. Results The distribution of cases existed significant differences among eight climate zones (F-test: 267.02, p  Conclusions This study found the variability of epidemic features of influenza among eight climate zones. We highlight that Dwb was the high-risk zone where influenza clustered with the highest incidence rate and epidemic temporal indices. This provide further insight into potential improvement of preventive measures by climate zones to minimize the impact of epidemics.