Epidemiological Study of Vector-Borne Diseases in Punjab, Pakistan

This study focuses on dengue, malaria, and leishmaniasis in Punjab, Pakistan. Punjab is a province of Pakistan. It has a population of approximately 110 million, according to the 2017 Pakistan Census [38 ]. It is the most populous province and second largest province by area after Balochistan. Punjab is located at 30°2 ${}^{\prime }$ 42.8856 ${}^{″}$ N and 72°20 ${}^{\prime }$ 55.9284 ${}^{″}$ E latitude and longitude, respectively. Its total area is 205,344 km ${}^2$ [38 ]. The province is divided into nine divisions, 36 districts, and 145 tehsils [39 ]. Lahore is the capital and largest city of Punjab. From west to east, five rivers flow through Pakistan’s Punjab province. Punjab’s region temperature ranges from −2 to 45 ${}^{\circ }$ C; in winter, the temperature can go down to −10 ${}^{\circ }$ C, and in summer, it can rise to 50 ${}^{\circ }$ C. Figure 3 shows the Punjab map. The Punjab region has three main seasons: (i) hot weather season from April to June when the temperature rises to 51 ${}^{\circ }$ C; (ii) the rainy season from July to September; and (iii) cold weather from October to March, and the temperature goes down to 2 ${}^{\circ }$ C [38 ]. Figure 3 was created on a tool named ArcGIS by using a shapefile of Pakistan with districts’ boundaries; then, we created a new layer for the province of Punjab with districts’ boundaries from the previous layer. ArcGIS is a powerful analysis tool that can perform the most fundamental GIS operations.