ABSTRACT:

Background: Hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD) is a common childhood illness caused by enteroviruses. Increasingly, the disease has a substantial burden throughout Vietnam. To better understand of the epidemiology of HFMD, this study aims to investigate the use of local Geary’s C statistic in the identification of local clusters of HFMD in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam. Methods: Histogram was first used to study the distribution of HFMD cases the incidence of HFMD. Local Geary C statistics was then applied to identify the spatial clusters of HFMD cases and HFMD incidence including high-high, low-low, negative and other positive clusters. Finally, HFMD cases and infection rates collected in Ho Chi Minh were used to explore the spatial clusters of HFMD.
Results: It was found that, in the case of using HFMD cases, two high-high clusters in District 12 and Binh Tan in the city center, one low-low cluster in District 5 in the east of the city center and two negative clusters in Binh Thanh and District 7 in the west of the city were successfully detected. On the other hand, in the case of using HFMD infection rates, a total of three high-high clusters, one low-low cluster, one negative and one other positive clusters were successfully detected, in which, the three high-high clusters were found in the districts of Binh Tan (289 cases/100,000 inhabitants), Binh Chanh (283 cases/100,000 inhabitants) and Tan Phu (281 cases/100,000 inhabitants) in the east of the city.
Conclusions: findings in this study confirm the usefulness of local Geary’s C statistic in the identification of spatial clusters of HFMD.

KEYWORDS:

Hand, foot, and mouth disease, Spatial distribution, Local clusters, Local Gearry’s C statistic.

REFERENCES :

1) Schmidt NJ, Lennette EH, Ho HH. An apparently new enterovirus isolated from patients with disease of the central nervous system. J Infect Dis. 1974;129(3):304–9.
2) Solomon T, Lewthwaite P, Perera D, Cardosa MJ, McMinn P, Ooi MH. Virology, epidemiology, pathogenesis, and control of enterovirus 71. Lancet Infect Dis. 2010;10(11):778–90.
3) Zhu P, Ji W, Li D, Li Z, Chen Y, Dai B, et al. Current status of hand-foot-and-mouth disease. J Biomed Sci. 2023;30(1):15.
4) Ooi MH, Wong SC, Lewthwaite P, Cardosa MJ, Solomon T. Clinical features, diagnosis, and management of enterovirus 71. Lancet Neurol. 2010;9(11):1097–105.
5) Bubba L, Broberg EK, Jasir A, Simmonds P, Harvala H, Redlberger-Fritz M, et al. Circulation of non-polio enteroviruses in 24 EU and EEA countries between 2015 and 2017: a retrospective surveillance study. Lancet Infect Dis. 2020;20(3):350–61.
6) Alsop J, Flewett TH, Foster JR. “Hand-foot-and-mouth disease” in Birmingham in 1959. Br Med J. 1960;2(5214):1708.
7) Shah VA, Chong CY, Chan KP, Ng W, Ling AE. Clinical characteristics of an outbreak of hand, foot and mouth disease in Singapore. Ann Acad Med Singapore. 2003;32(3):381–7.
8) Nguyen NTB, Pham H V, Hoang CQ, Nguyen TM, Nguyen LT, Phan HC, et al. Epidemiological and clinical characteristics of children who died from hand, foot and mouth disease in Vietnam, 2011. BMC Infect Dis. 2014;14:1–7.
9) Health VM of. Statistic Yearbook Communicable Diseases 2011. Hanoi; 2011.
10) Samphutthanon R, Kumar Tripathi N, Ninsawat S, Duboz R. Spatio-temporal distribution and hotspots of hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) in northern Thailand. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2014;11(1):312–36.
11) Xiao G, Hu Y, Ma JQ, Hao YT, Wang XF, Zhang YJ, et al. Spatial clustering and changing trend of hand-foot-mouth disease during 2008-2011 in China. Zhonghua liu xing bing xue za zhi= Zhonghua liuxingbingxue zazhi. 2012;33(8):808–12.
12) Ooi CH, Kiyu A, Brooke G. Application of Geographical information System (GIS) in Outbreak of Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease (HFMD) in Sarawak. Int J Infect Dis. 2008;12:e188.
13) Sham NM, Krishnarajah I, Ibrahim NA, Lye M-S. Temporal and spatial mapping of hand, foot and mouth disease in Sarawak, Malaysia. Geospat Health. 2014;8(2):503–7.
14) Noraishah MS, Krishnarajah I. Use of GIS mapping for HFMD cases in Sarawak, Malaysia. Int J. 2016;5(10):1937–45.
15) Liu H, Zhang Y, Zhang H, Zheng Y, Gou F, Yang X, et al. Prototypes virus of hand, foot and mouth disease infections and severe cases in Gansu, China: a spatial and temporal analysis. BMC Infect Dis. 2022;22(1):408.
16) Van Tu P, Thao NTT, Perera D, Truong KH, Tien NTK, Thuong TC, et al. Epidemiologic and virologic investigation of hand, foot, and mouth disease, southern Vietnam, 2005. Emerg Infect Dis. 2007;13(11):1733.
17) VietNamNews. HCM City faces burden of hand, foot, mouth disease and dengue fever [Internet]. Available from: https://vietnamnews.vn/society/1551273/hcm-city-faces-burden-of-hand-foot-mouth-disease-and-dengue-fever.html
18) Jeffers JNR. A basic subroutine for Geary’s contiguity ratio. J R Stat Soc Ser D (The Stat. 1973;22(4):299–302.
19) Geary RC. The contiguity ratio and statistical mapping. Inc Stat. 1954;5(3):115–46.
20) Anselin L. A local indicator of multivariate spatial association: extending Geary’s C. Geogr Anal. 2019;51(2):133–50.
21) Anselin L. Local indicators of spatial association—LISA. Geogr Anal. 1995;27(2):93–115.
22) Sokal RR, Oden NL, Thomson BA. Local spatial autocorrelation in a biological model. Geogr Anal. 1998;30(4):331–54