Abstract
Medical Geography today draws on the concepts and techniques of geography, and epitomes the interdisciplinary nature of urban health discipline. Chikungunya is one of the Vector-borne diseases and today it continues to remain an important public health problem in Madurai city. It is a mosquito-borne viral infection caused by the Chikungunya Virus (CHKV). The sudden onset of very high fever along with a rash and severe arthralgia especially in the small joints of hands and toes are the characteristics of the disease. The study area, Madurai is the oldest and second-largest city in Tamil Nadu situated on the banks of river Vaigai in the south-central part of Tamil Nadu, India. The main objectives were to identify the major disease zones concerning Chikungunya cases and to observe the related urban ecological and environmental conditions. The study also aimed to derive a conceptual framework towards strengthening, control and sustainable development of the urban landscape. The data collected were taken by using the method of stratified Random sampling and a total of 600 samples were collected. Standard score (Z-score) technique was used to describe the relationship between the sets of variables and total conditions of selected urban environmental variables. It includes mapping of the disease using GIS software of Arc GIS. Apart from this, the multi-variant statistical technique, factor analysis is used to find the major associations and interrelationship between Chikungunya and people. The twelve factors rotated by explaining the varimax procedure registered more than 89.83 percent of the total variance. Among these, the first factor alone accounted for 33.52 percent of the total variance and eigenvalue of 21.45 was qualified as the primary factor. Our study concludes that in Madurai city’s built-up area, a landscape environment of transmission of Chikungunya epidemics with a high prevalence is noted since it is associated with urban environmental factors.
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Saravanabavan, V., Balaji, D., Reshma, C.U. et al. Urban disease ecology and its spatial variation of Chikungunya in Madurai City, Tamilnadu, India: a geo-medical study. GeoJournal 86, 2335–2350 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-020-10192-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-020-10192-6