Impact of monsoon on corona virus spread

Subject: Geography/Science and tech

Context:

After the onset of southwest monsoon in India, epidemiologists are studying how monsoon will impact coronavirus spread.

Concept:

• Scientists are not sure how the rain might affect virus behavior because of its recent emergence. So the effort is to look for clues in the way other similar viruses behave during the rainy season.
• According to epidemiologists, viral disease spread depends on three major factors — seasonal changes in environment (temperature, humidity, sunlight), human behavioural patterns, and intrinsic characteristics of the virus, like its infectiousness, pathogenicity and survival.
• Many is of the opinion that it could take several years to determine how novel coronavirus is affected by different seasons. Since respiratory synctial virus infection and other respiratory diseases usually do follow seasonal patterns, carrying out year-round Covid-19 surveillance for several years would be the key to determining its seasonality

Vector borne diseases

• Vector-borne diseases are human illnesses caused by parasites, viruses and bacteria that are transmitted by vectors. Examples: Malaria, dengue, schistosomiasis, human African trypanosomiasis, leishmaniasis, Chagas disease, yellow fever, Japanese encephalitis and onchocerciasis.
• The burden of these diseases is highest in tropical and subtropical areas, and they disproportionately affect the poorest populations.