Spatial distribution of the relative risk of Zika virus disease in Colombia during the 2015-2016 epidemic from a Bayesian approach.

Objective: To determine the spatial distribution of the risk of Zika virus disease in each region of Colombia during the 2015-2016 epidemic.

Methods: An ecological study was designed to estimate the risks for each Colombian region using first-order neighbors, covariate effects, and three adjacent periods of time (beginning, development, and end of the epidemic) to analyze the spatial distribution of the disease based on a Bayesian hierarchical model.

Results: Spatial distribution of the estimated risks of Zika virus disease showed that it increased in a strip that crosses the central area of the country from west to east.