Environmental Influence on a Rabies Spread Modelling in North Sulawesi, Indonesia

Numerous studies about the transmission of rabies have been reported to not restrict by administrative boundaries and the history of occurrence of the diseases. These conditions were influenced by surrounding environments, economic conditions, and human and animal habits. The environmental factors such as land use, water bodies, forests, and land slopes are considered to be the defining factor for migrating rabid animals to move from place to place. The study of the spread of rabies cases based on environmental elements that can predict the direction of the spread of rabies cases overtime is needed. Yet, information on how environmental conditions affect the dispersal pattern of human rabies or rabid remains unclear. Hence, we analyzed it and they considered it to be the input of the rabies alert system. Environmental factors on human rabies and rabid dogs are explored to define the spatial rating distribution of rabies in North Sulawesi Province, Indonesia. The purpose of this work is to obtain up a spatial model design to help predict rabies spread patterns based on land closure conditions. The result shows that a combination using the land cover, slope/ elevations and location of the cases significantly shows the dispersal pattern of rabid animals. It is dominantly happening in urban areas with a low slope condition and represents about 80% of the total human rabies cases. Still, this study was limited to the movement of rabid animals due to a lack of rabid-animals and animal populations. Thus, future analysis of epidemiology rabies predictions is needed.