Forecasting dengue incidence in Dhaka, Bangladesh: A time series analysis.

ABSTRACT

This article attempts to model the monthly number of dengue fever (DF) cases in Dhaka, Bangladesh,and forecast the dengue incidence using time series analysis. Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated MovingAverage (SARIMA) models have been developed on the monthly data collected from January 2000 toOctober 2007 and validated using the data from September 2006 to October 2007. The results showed that the predicted values were consistent with the upturns and downturns of the observedseries. The SARIMA (1,0,0)(1,1,1)12 model has been found as the most suitable model with least Normalized Bayesian Information Criteria (BIC) of 11.918 and Mean Absolute Percent Error (MAPE) of595.346. The model was further validated by Ljung-Box test (Q18=15.266 and p>.10) with nosignificant auto correlation between residuals at different lag times. Finally, a forecast for the period November 2007 to December 2008 was made, which showed a pick in the incidence of DF during July 2008, with estimated cases as 689.