Dengue fever is a mosquito-borne viral disease caused by the dengue virus of the Flaviviridae family and is responsible for colossal health and economic burden worldwide. This study aimed to investigate the effect of environmental, seasonal, and spatial variations on the spread of dengue fever in Sri Lanka. The study used secondary data of monthly dengue infection and the monthly average of environmental parameters of 26 Sri Lankan regions from January 2015 to December 2019. Besides the descriptive measurements, Kendall's tau_b, Spearman's rho, and Kruskal-Wallis H test have been performed as bivariate analyses. The multivariate generalized linear negative binomial regression model was applied to determine the impacts of meteorological factors on dengue transmission. The aggregate negative binomial regression model disclosed that precipitation (odds ratio: 0.97, p < 0.05), humidity (odds ratio: 1.05, p < 0.01), and air pressure (odds ratio: 1.46, p < 0.01) were significantly influenced the spread of dengue fever in Sri Lanka. The bioclimatic zone is the vital factor that substantially affects the dengue infection, and the wet zone (odds ratio: 6.41, p < 0.05) was more at-risk than the dry zone. The climate season significantly influenced dengue fever transmission, and a higher infection rate was found (odds ratio: 1.46, p < 0.01) in the northeast monsoon season. The findings of this study facilitate policymakers to improve the existing dengue control strategies focusing on the meteorological condition in the local as well as global perspectives.

Background Studying the characteristics of Aedes mosquito habitats is essential to control the mosquito population. The objective of this study was to identify the breeding sites of Aedes larvae and their distribution in Chattogram, Bangladesh. We conducted an entomological survey in 12 different sub-districts (Thana) under Chattogram City, during the late monsoon (August to November) 2019. The presence of different wet containers along with their characteristics and immature mosquitoes was recorded in field survey data form. Larvae and/or pupae were collected and brought to the laboratory for identification. Results Different indices like house index, container index, and the Breteau index were estimated. The multiple logistic regression analysis was applied to identify habitats that were more likely to be positive for Aedes larvae/pupae. A total of 704 wet containers of 37 different types from 216 properties were examined, where 52 (7.39%) were positive for Aedes larvae or pupae. Tire, plastic buckets, plastic drums, and coconut shells were the most prevalent container types. The plastic group possessed the highest container productivity (50%) whereas the vehicle and machinery group was found as most efficient (1.83) in terms of immature Aedes production. Among the total positive properties, 8% were infested with Aedes aegypti, 2% with Aedes albopictus, and 1% contained both species Ae. aegypti and A. albopictus. The overall house index was 17.35%, the container index was 7%, and the Breteau index was 24.49. Containers in multistoried houses had significantly lower positivity compared to independent houses. Binary logistic regression represented that containers having shade were 6.7 times more likely to be positive than the containers without shade (p< 0.01). Conclusions These findings might assist the authorities to identify the properties, containers, and geographical areas with different degrees of risk for mosquito control interventions to prevent dengue and other Aedes-borne disease transmissions.

Women especially in developing countries are not empowered in most of fields of their life. They depend on their husband or father in a number of ways. No doubt, education and change of society's attitude towards women is best tool to empower women. Decision making power regarding household, economic, healthcare and women participation in political and social activities can also play positive role to promote awareness to empower women in society. Nowadays, the scenario is changing in Bangladesh and women getting more empower in decision making, earnings and health care. This paper aims to evaluate the factors influencing women's empowerment in Bangladesh. This paper focuses on women empowerment through decision making power at household level, health care, political and social activities. This study reveals that majority of the married women can jointly make decision about their household and economic segment, health care, the participation in political and social activities with their husbands. This paper also shows that urban respondents are relatively more empowered than their rural counterparts and types of place of residence plays a significant role in the women empowerment in Bangladesh. The women who are currently working have more freedom to make decision over their personal, social and political life than the women who are not currently working. This paper recognizes that there is a strong relationship between decision making power and women empowerment.

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI)

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