Abstract
The agent of Kawasaki disease (KD) remains unknown after more than 40 years of intensive research, but new information from analyses of KD time series from locations worldwide suggests that KD activity is modulated by weather and climate processes. Most Northern Hemisphere locations with a sufficient number of KD cases to allow for analysis exhibit seasonal fluctuations in KD incidence. Analyses of climate variables have linked seasonal and shorter period variations of KD with fluctuations in large-scale tropospheric wind patterns. A recent set of analyses suggests that the KD agent is transported to particular regions by distinct wind flow patterns and that a potential source region for Japan is upstream over northeast China. Analysis of aerosol samples from peak and trough periods of KD activity in Japan is ongoing and will likely yield further insights into the nature of the causative agent.
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Burns, J.C., Cayan, D.R. (2017). The Climate–KD Link. In: Saji, B., Newburger, J., Burns, J., Takahashi, M. (eds) Kawasaki Disease. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-56039-5_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-56039-5_8
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