The Bioclimate of Cholera: The Case of Haiti

Methods We propose a simple model with two infective classes in order to model the cholera epidemic in Haiti. We include the impact of environmental events on the epidemic in the Artibonite and Ouest regions by introducing terms for the contact rate that vary with environmental conditions. To determine the timing and magnitude of these effects, we analyze weekly reported cholera cases versus rainfall and temperature for the Artibonite and Ouest regions. In addition, tidal influences were included in the Ouest region to account for residual variation in the data. We then fitted the models to new and total cases to obtain epidemic projections from April 2012 through February 2013.