Climate drives spatial variation in Zika epidemics in Latin America

Between 2015 and 2017, Zika virus spread rapidly through populations in the Americas with no prior exposure to the disease. Although climate is a known determinant of many Aedes-transmitted diseases, it is currently unclear whether climate was a major driver of the Zika epidemic and how climate might have differentially impacted outbreak intensity across locations within Latin America. Here, we estimated force of infection for Zika over time and across provinces in Latin America using a time-varying susceptible–infectious–recovered model. Climate factors explained less than 5% of the variation in weekly transmission intensity in a spatio-temporal model of force of infection by province over time, suggesting that week to week transmission within provinces may be too stochastic to predict. By contrast, climate and population factors were highly predictive of spatial variation in the presence and intensity of Zika transmission among provinces, with pseudo-R(2) values between 0.33 and 0.60. Temperature, temperature range, rainfall and population size were the most important predictors of where Zika transmission occurred, while rainfall, relative humidity and a nonlinear effect of temperature were the best predictors of Zika intensity and burden. Surprisingly, force of infection was greatest in locations with temperatures near 24°C, much lower than previous estimates from mechanistic models, potentially suggesting that existing vector control programmes and/or prior exposure to other mosquito-borne diseases may have limited transmission in locations most suitable for Aedes aegypti, the main vector of Zika, dengue and chikungunya viruses in Latin America.