COMMUN. BIOMATH. SCI., VOL. 2, NO. 1, PP. 23-37 23 Comparison of Dengue Transmission in Lowland and Highland Area: Case Study in Semarang and Malang, Indonesia Ilham Saiful Fauzi 1∗ , Muhammad Fakhruddin 1 , Nuning Nuraini 1 , Karunia Putra Wijaya 2 1 Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Institut Teknologi Bandung, Bandung 40132, Indonesia 2 Mathematical Institute, University of Koblenz-Landau, 56070 Koblenz, Germany Email: ilham.fauzi39@s.itb.ac.id, m fakhruddin@s.itb.ac.id, nuning@math.itb.ac.id, karuniaputra@uni-koblenz.de Abstract Dengue is a potentially lethal mosquito-borne disease, regarded as the most dangerous disease in the world. It is also a major health issue in tropical and subtropical countries. Environmental characteristics and sociocultural are factors which play a role in the spread of dengue. Different landscape structure such as lowland and highland areas are possible to give different infection rate on dengue transmission. Semarang and Malang are densely populated areas in Java, which are selected to be our study areas. A mathematical model (SIR-UV) is adapted to describe dengue transmission. Spiral dynamic optimization is applied to convert monthly data to weekly in Malang and estimate the infection rate that minimized the deviation between dengue data and simulation. This method produces a good fitting to the data. We compare the pattern of dengue cases from the simulation in both cities. Furthermore, we identify seasonal variations of the cases via Fourier series of the infection rate. We also investigate the correlation between humidity, infection rate, and dengue cases in Semarang and Malang. It reveals that humidity influences infection rate in 1-3 weeks later and the infection rate produces dengue cases in the next four weeks. Keywords: Dengue, infection rate, comparison, lowland, highland, host-vector model, spiral optimization. 2010 MSC: 93A30, 37N25, 37N40, 37C60, 62P12 1. I NTRODUCTION Dengue potentially becomes a dangerous vector-borne disease in the world. It is one of the viral health issues in tropical and subtropical countries cause of its significant impact on morbidity and mortality. Dengue outbreaks can be found in more than 100 countries in Asia, Africa, America, and Pacific. Approximately 50-100 million dengue cases are recorded every year and about two-thirds of the world’s population stays in urban and semi-urban region that infested with dengue vectors [3], [14]. Its quick global spread in the last decades is unprecedented and worrisome. Dengue poses a global health threat as its high prevalence, limitations of vaccine and prophylactic measure, and the lack of particular treatment [19]. Infectious agent of dengue belongs to the Flaviviridae group of RNA-viruses that can be classified into four serotypes (DENV-1, DENV-2, DENV-3, and DENV-4) [11], [21]. Female species of Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes play an essential role as the primary vector in the contagion of dengue virus [5], [10]. Aedes mosquito population can be found in environment that has warm temperatures and lots of stagnant water. An area with high precipitation, favorable temperature, suitable humidity, and strong seasonal variation is an ideal habitat for vector growth [26]. Transmission process and dynamics of dengue transmission have a high sensitivity to meteorological conditions [6], [14], [12]. Warmer temperatures will extend the lifespan of adult mosquitoes and shorten the transition rate for each phase in their life cycle. High precipitation will expand breeding zones that give more space for laying their eggs [10]. Humidity influences vector competence, biting behavior, and adult mosquito survival [10]. Indonesia, as a tropical country, features an ecological environment that very appropriate for the Aedes mosquitoes growth, which makes them easy to form the dengue transmission cycle and this condition triggers an outbreak. In previous studies, climate factors such as rainfall, temperature, and humidity, are significant drivers that have been highlighted. In recent years, environmental characteristics and socio-cultural activities also have a link to dengue [18]. Modification on the natural environment can affect the population of various pathogen vectors and create propitious habitats for its abundance with adverse effects on public health [19]. The urban and semi-urban environment supports a high density of human population and domestic pet that establish Received December 21 st , 2018, Revised January 27 th , 2019, Accepted for publication May 30 th , 2019. Copyright ©2019 Published by Indonesian Biomathematical Society, e-ISSN: 2549-2896, DOI:10.5614/cbms.2019.2.1.3