Does Elevation Play a Role in the Transmission of Pulmonary Tuberculosis in South Africa

Abstract

Pulmonary Tuberculosis is the number one killer in South Africa. Although this is helped spurred on by the HIV/AIDS co-epidemic. We explored the effect of elevation in Tuberculosis transmission and mortality. Landsat 8 imageries were downloaded through earth-explorer and processed in Arc map 10.3. LULC maps generated from the satellite images were used for land characterization of provinces in South Africa. 3D DEM in Arc scene was utilized in displaying the elevation dataset. Our findings on the aggregate data at the provincial level could not show the association between elevation and Tuberculosis transmission and mortality.