Cargando…

Sellers’ Revisited: A Big Data Reassessment of Historical Outbreaks of Bluetongue and African Horse Sickness due to the Long-Distance Wind Dispersion of Culicoides Midges

The possibility that outbreaks of bluetongue (BT) and African horse sickness (AHS) might occur via long-distance wind dispersion (LDWD) of their insect vector (Culicoides spp.) was proposed by R. F. Sellers in a series of papers published between 1977 and 1991. These investigated the role of LDWD by...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Durr, Peter A., Graham, Kerryne, van Klinken, Rieks D.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5517479/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28775987
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2017.00098
_version_ 1783251294150983680
author Durr, Peter A.
Graham, Kerryne
van Klinken, Rieks D.
author_facet Durr, Peter A.
Graham, Kerryne
van Klinken, Rieks D.
author_sort Durr, Peter A.
collection PubMed
description The possibility that outbreaks of bluetongue (BT) and African horse sickness (AHS) might occur via long-distance wind dispersion (LDWD) of their insect vector (Culicoides spp.) was proposed by R. F. Sellers in a series of papers published between 1977 and 1991. These investigated the role of LDWD by means of visual examination of the wind direction of synoptic weather charts. Based on the hypothesis that simple wind direction analysis, which does not allow for wind speed, might have led to spurious conclusions, we reanalyzed six of the outbreak scenarios described in Sellers’ papers. For this reanalysis, we used a custom-built Big Data application (“TAPPAS”) which couples a user-friendly web-interface with an established atmospheric dispersal model (“HYSPLIT”), thus enabling more sophisticated modeling than was possible when Sellers undertook his analyzes. For the two AHS outbreaks, there was strong support from our reanalysis of the role of LDWD for that in Spain (1966), and to a lesser degree, for the outbreak in Cyprus (1960). However, for the BT outbreaks, the reassessments were more complex, and for one of these (western Turkey, 1977) we could discount LDWD as the means of direct introduction of the virus. By contrast, while the outbreak in Cyprus (1977) showed LDWD was a possible means of introduction, there is an apparent inconsistency in that the outbreaks were localized while the dispersion events covered much of the island. For Portugal (1956), LDWD from Morocco on the dates suggested by Sellers is very unlikely to have been the pathway for introduction, and for the detection of serotype 2 in Florida (1982), LDWD from Cuba would require an assumption of a lengthy survival time of the midges in the air column. Except for western Turkey, the BT reanalyses show the limitation of LDWD modeling when used by itself, and indicates the need to integrate susceptible host population distribution (and other covariate) data into the modeling process. A further refinement, which will become increasingly important to assess LDWD, will be the use of virus and vector genome sequence data collected from potential source and the incursion sites.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-5517479
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2017
publisher Frontiers Media S.A.
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-55174792017-08-03 Sellers’ Revisited: A Big Data Reassessment of Historical Outbreaks of Bluetongue and African Horse Sickness due to the Long-Distance Wind Dispersion of Culicoides Midges Durr, Peter A. Graham, Kerryne van Klinken, Rieks D. Front Vet Sci Veterinary Science The possibility that outbreaks of bluetongue (BT) and African horse sickness (AHS) might occur via long-distance wind dispersion (LDWD) of their insect vector (Culicoides spp.) was proposed by R. F. Sellers in a series of papers published between 1977 and 1991. These investigated the role of LDWD by means of visual examination of the wind direction of synoptic weather charts. Based on the hypothesis that simple wind direction analysis, which does not allow for wind speed, might have led to spurious conclusions, we reanalyzed six of the outbreak scenarios described in Sellers’ papers. For this reanalysis, we used a custom-built Big Data application (“TAPPAS”) which couples a user-friendly web-interface with an established atmospheric dispersal model (“HYSPLIT”), thus enabling more sophisticated modeling than was possible when Sellers undertook his analyzes. For the two AHS outbreaks, there was strong support from our reanalysis of the role of LDWD for that in Spain (1966), and to a lesser degree, for the outbreak in Cyprus (1960). However, for the BT outbreaks, the reassessments were more complex, and for one of these (western Turkey, 1977) we could discount LDWD as the means of direct introduction of the virus. By contrast, while the outbreak in Cyprus (1977) showed LDWD was a possible means of introduction, there is an apparent inconsistency in that the outbreaks were localized while the dispersion events covered much of the island. For Portugal (1956), LDWD from Morocco on the dates suggested by Sellers is very unlikely to have been the pathway for introduction, and for the detection of serotype 2 in Florida (1982), LDWD from Cuba would require an assumption of a lengthy survival time of the midges in the air column. Except for western Turkey, the BT reanalyses show the limitation of LDWD modeling when used by itself, and indicates the need to integrate susceptible host population distribution (and other covariate) data into the modeling process. A further refinement, which will become increasingly important to assess LDWD, will be the use of virus and vector genome sequence data collected from potential source and the incursion sites. Frontiers Media S.A. 2017-07-20 /pmc/articles/PMC5517479/ /pubmed/28775987 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2017.00098 Text en Copyright © 2017 Durr, Graham and van Klinken. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Veterinary Science
Durr, Peter A.
Graham, Kerryne
van Klinken, Rieks D.
Sellers’ Revisited: A Big Data Reassessment of Historical Outbreaks of Bluetongue and African Horse Sickness due to the Long-Distance Wind Dispersion of Culicoides Midges
title Sellers’ Revisited: A Big Data Reassessment of Historical Outbreaks of Bluetongue and African Horse Sickness due to the Long-Distance Wind Dispersion of Culicoides Midges
title_full Sellers’ Revisited: A Big Data Reassessment of Historical Outbreaks of Bluetongue and African Horse Sickness due to the Long-Distance Wind Dispersion of Culicoides Midges
title_fullStr Sellers’ Revisited: A Big Data Reassessment of Historical Outbreaks of Bluetongue and African Horse Sickness due to the Long-Distance Wind Dispersion of Culicoides Midges
title_full_unstemmed Sellers’ Revisited: A Big Data Reassessment of Historical Outbreaks of Bluetongue and African Horse Sickness due to the Long-Distance Wind Dispersion of Culicoides Midges
title_short Sellers’ Revisited: A Big Data Reassessment of Historical Outbreaks of Bluetongue and African Horse Sickness due to the Long-Distance Wind Dispersion of Culicoides Midges
title_sort sellers’ revisited: a big data reassessment of historical outbreaks of bluetongue and african horse sickness due to the long-distance wind dispersion of culicoides midges
topic Veterinary Science
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5517479/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28775987
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2017.00098
work_keys_str_mv AT durrpetera sellersrevisitedabigdatareassessmentofhistoricaloutbreaksofbluetongueandafricanhorsesicknessduetothelongdistancewinddispersionofculicoidesmidges
AT grahamkerryne sellersrevisitedabigdatareassessmentofhistoricaloutbreaksofbluetongueandafricanhorsesicknessduetothelongdistancewinddispersionofculicoidesmidges
AT vanklinkenrieksd sellersrevisitedabigdatareassessmentofhistoricaloutbreaksofbluetongueandafricanhorsesicknessduetothelongdistancewinddispersionofculicoidesmidges