Monitoring dengue scenario in Malaysia using survival analysis

Dengue is growing most rapidly in tropical and subtropical countries where majority of the world’s population reside and increasing health and economic burden. It has become endemic in Malaysia since 1971 and reported cases have increased in over 6-fold over the past decade. This paper demonstrates how survival analysis techniques are used to compare the outcomes of dengue that occur over time between each region of states within years. The real data set consist of 3900 observations which represent the number of weekly reported dengue cases and its associated deaths in years 2010-2014, are divided into four zones: Northern, East Coast, Central and East Malaysia. Kaplan-Meier survival curve is used to estimate the survival function. East Malaysia had the highest survival function of dengue cases for most years, while the central region the lowest. An extended log-rank test shows significance between regions in most years. Meanwhile, the analysis of deaths reveals varying trends and lack of significant differences among regions.