Modeling the Risk of Infectious Diseases Transmitted by Aedes aegypti Using Survival and Aging Statistical Analysis with a Case Study in Colombia

Many infectious diseases are deadly to humans. The Aedes aegypi mosquito is the principal vector of infectious diseases that include chikungunya, dengue, yellow fever, and zika. Some factors such as survival time and aging are vital in its development and capacity to transmit the pathogens, which in turn are affected by environmental factors such as temperature. In this paper, we consider aging as the biological wear and tear presented in some mosquito populations over time, whereas survival is considered as the maximum time that a mosquito lives. We propose statistical methods that are commonly used in engineering for reliability analysis to compare transmission riskiness among different mosquitoes. We conducted a case study in three Colombian cities: Bello, Riohacha, and Villavicencio. In this study, we detected that the Aedes aegypi female mosquitoes in Bello live longer than in Riohacha and Villavicencio, and the females in Riohacha live longer than those in Villavicencio. Regarding aging, the females from Riohacha age slower than in Villavicencio and the latter age slower than in Bello. Mosquito populations that age slower are considered young and the other ones are old. In addition, we detected that the females from Bello in the temperature range of 27 ${}^{\circ }$C–28 ${}^{\circ }$C age slower than those in Bello at higher temperatures. In general, a young female has a higher risk of transmitting a disease to humans than an old female, regardless of its survival time. These findings have not been previously reported in studies of this type of infectious diseases and contributed to new knowledge in biomedicine.