Spatial analysis of bovine tuberculosis in the State of Mexico, Mexico

Abstract

Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is a chronic infectious disease that affects both domestic animals and wildlife. Veterinary epidemiology studies evaluate bTB using geographic information systems (GIS), which can characterise the spatial and temporal distribution of diseases and identify the geographic areas and animal populations at risk of contracting a disease. The present study used space‑time permutation scan statistic to identify the spatial and temporal distribution of bTB from 2005 to 2010 in the State of Mexico with the goal of creating a similarity model using Mahalanobis Distance to identify areas suitable for bTB occurrence. Three significant clusters were identified using space‑time permutation scan statistic and the similarity model identified several areas with suitable environmental and demographic characteristics. The results demonstrate that the occurrence of bTB in the State of Mexico is not randomly distributed.