Background: Assessing the vulnerability of an infectious disease such as dengue among endemic population is an important requirement to design proactive programmes in order to improve resilience capacity of vulnerable communities. Despite the significance in decision making process especially for rational resource allocation, recognition of actual burden of dengue, the vulnerability of dengue has been limitedly addressed in many countries including Sri Lanka, due to some in a holistic methodology.
Methods: A total of 42 variables (entomological, epidemiological, meteorological parameters, landuse practices and socio-demographic data) of all the 38 Medical Officer of Health (MOH) areas in the districts of Colombo and Kandy were considered as candidate variables for composite index based vulnerability assessment. The Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was used in selecting and setting the weight for each indicator. Exposure, Sensitivity, Adaptive Capacity and Vulnerability of all the MOH areas for dengue incidence were calculated.
Results: Out of 42 candidate variables, only 23 parameters (Exposure Index: 6 variables; Sensitivity Index: 11 variables; Adaptive Capacity Index: 6 variables) were selected as the indicators to assess climate change vulnerability to dengue. Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) MOH area denoted the highest values for exposure (0.89: exceptionally high exposure), sensitivity (0.86: exceptionally high sensitivity) in the district of Colombo, while Kandy Municipal Council (KMC) area reported the highest exposure (0.79: high exposure) and sensitivity (0.77: high sensitivity) in Kandy. Piliyandala MOH area denoted the highest level of adaptive capacity (0.66) in the district of Colombo followed by Menikhinna (0.68) in Kandy. The highest vulnerability (0.45: moderate vulnerability) to dengue was receded from CMC and the lowest indicated from Galaha MOH (0.15; very low vulnerability) in Kandy. Interestingly the Kandy Municipal Council MOH area had a notable vulnerability of 0.41 (moderate vulnerability), which remained the highest within Kandy.
Conclusions: In general, vulnerability for dengue was relatively higher within the MOH areas of Colombo, than in Kandy, suggesting a higher degree of potential susceptibility to dengue within among local communities of Colombo. The VCE are recommended to consider the spatial variations in vulnerability of local communities to dengue for decision making, especially in allocation of limited financial, human and mechanical resources for dengue epidemic management.