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Evaluating the risk for Usutu virus circulation in Europe: comparison of environmental niche models and epidemiological models

BACKGROUND: Usutu virus (USUV) is a mosquito-borne flavivirus, reported in many countries of Africa and Europe, with an increasing spatial distribution and host range. Recent outbreaks leading to regional declines of European common blackbird (Turdus merula) populations and a rising number of human...

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Autores principales: Cheng, Yanchao, Tjaden, Nils Benjamin, Jaeschke, Anja, Lühken, Renke, Ziegler, Ute, Thomas, Stephanie Margarete, Beierkuhnlein, Carl
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6186058/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30314528
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12942-018-0155-7
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author Cheng, Yanchao
Tjaden, Nils Benjamin
Jaeschke, Anja
Lühken, Renke
Ziegler, Ute
Thomas, Stephanie Margarete
Beierkuhnlein, Carl
author_facet Cheng, Yanchao
Tjaden, Nils Benjamin
Jaeschke, Anja
Lühken, Renke
Ziegler, Ute
Thomas, Stephanie Margarete
Beierkuhnlein, Carl
author_sort Cheng, Yanchao
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Usutu virus (USUV) is a mosquito-borne flavivirus, reported in many countries of Africa and Europe, with an increasing spatial distribution and host range. Recent outbreaks leading to regional declines of European common blackbird (Turdus merula) populations and a rising number of human cases emphasize the need for increased awareness and spatial risk assessment. METHODS: Modelling approaches in ecology and epidemiology differ substantially in their algorithms, potentially resulting in diverging model outputs. Therefore, we implemented a parallel approach incorporating two commonly applied modelling techniques: (1) Maxent, a correlation-based environmental niche model and (2) a mechanistic epidemiological susceptible-exposed-infected-removed (SEIR) model. Across Europe, surveillance data of USUV-positive birds from 2003 to 2016 was acquired to train the environmental niche model and to serve as test cases for the SEIR model. The SEIR model is mainly driven by daily mean temperature and calculates the basic reproduction number R(0). The environmental niche model was run with long-term bio-climatic variables derived from the same source in order to estimate climatic suitability. RESULTS: Large areas across Europe are currently suitable for USUV transmission. Both models show patterns of high risk for USUV in parts of France, in the Pannonian Basin as well as northern Italy. The environmental niche model depicts the current situation better, but with USUV still being in an invasive stage there is a chance for under-estimation of risk. Areas where transmission occurred are mostly predicted correctly by the SEIR model, but it mostly fails to resolve the temporal dynamics of USUV events. High R(0) values predicted by the SEIR model in areas without evidence for real-life transmission suggest that it may tend towards over-estimation of risk. CONCLUSIONS: The results from our parallel-model approach highlight that relying on a single model for assessing vector-borne disease risk may lead to incomplete conclusions. Utilizing different modelling approaches is thus crucial for risk-assessment of under-studied emerging pathogens like USUV. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12942-018-0155-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-61860582018-10-19 Evaluating the risk for Usutu virus circulation in Europe: comparison of environmental niche models and epidemiological models Cheng, Yanchao Tjaden, Nils Benjamin Jaeschke, Anja Lühken, Renke Ziegler, Ute Thomas, Stephanie Margarete Beierkuhnlein, Carl Int J Health Geogr Research BACKGROUND: Usutu virus (USUV) is a mosquito-borne flavivirus, reported in many countries of Africa and Europe, with an increasing spatial distribution and host range. Recent outbreaks leading to regional declines of European common blackbird (Turdus merula) populations and a rising number of human cases emphasize the need for increased awareness and spatial risk assessment. METHODS: Modelling approaches in ecology and epidemiology differ substantially in their algorithms, potentially resulting in diverging model outputs. Therefore, we implemented a parallel approach incorporating two commonly applied modelling techniques: (1) Maxent, a correlation-based environmental niche model and (2) a mechanistic epidemiological susceptible-exposed-infected-removed (SEIR) model. Across Europe, surveillance data of USUV-positive birds from 2003 to 2016 was acquired to train the environmental niche model and to serve as test cases for the SEIR model. The SEIR model is mainly driven by daily mean temperature and calculates the basic reproduction number R(0). The environmental niche model was run with long-term bio-climatic variables derived from the same source in order to estimate climatic suitability. RESULTS: Large areas across Europe are currently suitable for USUV transmission. Both models show patterns of high risk for USUV in parts of France, in the Pannonian Basin as well as northern Italy. The environmental niche model depicts the current situation better, but with USUV still being in an invasive stage there is a chance for under-estimation of risk. Areas where transmission occurred are mostly predicted correctly by the SEIR model, but it mostly fails to resolve the temporal dynamics of USUV events. High R(0) values predicted by the SEIR model in areas without evidence for real-life transmission suggest that it may tend towards over-estimation of risk. CONCLUSIONS: The results from our parallel-model approach highlight that relying on a single model for assessing vector-borne disease risk may lead to incomplete conclusions. Utilizing different modelling approaches is thus crucial for risk-assessment of under-studied emerging pathogens like USUV. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12942-018-0155-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2018-10-12 /pmc/articles/PMC6186058/ /pubmed/30314528 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12942-018-0155-7 Text en © The Author(s) 2018 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research
Cheng, Yanchao
Tjaden, Nils Benjamin
Jaeschke, Anja
Lühken, Renke
Ziegler, Ute
Thomas, Stephanie Margarete
Beierkuhnlein, Carl
Evaluating the risk for Usutu virus circulation in Europe: comparison of environmental niche models and epidemiological models
title Evaluating the risk for Usutu virus circulation in Europe: comparison of environmental niche models and epidemiological models
title_full Evaluating the risk for Usutu virus circulation in Europe: comparison of environmental niche models and epidemiological models
title_fullStr Evaluating the risk for Usutu virus circulation in Europe: comparison of environmental niche models and epidemiological models
title_full_unstemmed Evaluating the risk for Usutu virus circulation in Europe: comparison of environmental niche models and epidemiological models
title_short Evaluating the risk for Usutu virus circulation in Europe: comparison of environmental niche models and epidemiological models
title_sort evaluating the risk for usutu virus circulation in europe: comparison of environmental niche models and epidemiological models
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6186058/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30314528
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12942-018-0155-7
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