A novel approach for predicting risk of vector-borne disease establishment in marginal temperate environments under climate change: West Nile virus in the UK

Abstract

Vector-borne diseases (VBDs), such as dengue, Zika, West Nile virus (WNV) and tick-borne encephalitis, account for substantial human morbidity worldwide and have expanded their range into temperate regions in recent decades. Climate change has been proposed as a likely driver of past and future expansion, however, the complex ecology of host and vector populations and their interactions with each other, environmental variables and land-use changes makes understanding the likely impacts of climate change on VBDs challenging. We present an environmentally driven, stage-structured, host–vector mathematical modelling framework to address this challenge. We apply our framework to predict the risk of WNV outbreaks in current and future UK climates. WNV is a mosquito-borne arbovirus which has expanded its range in mainland Europe in recent years. We predict that, while risks will remain low in the coming two to three decades, the risk of WNV outbreaks in the UK will increase with projected temperature rises and outbreaks appear plausible in the latter half of this century. This risk will increase substantially if increased temperatures lead to increases in the length of the mosquito biting season or if European strains show higher replication at lower temperatures than North American strains.

Climate Crises and Developing Vector-Borne Diseases: A Narrative Review

“…A reservoir, included humans, animals or insects, is the principal habitat in which a pathogen lives and flourishes. Vector-borne diseases such as malaria, dengue fever, Chagas disease, leishmaniasis, trypanosomiasis, schistosomiasis and yellow fever are the infections that are most transmitted by the bite of infected arthropod and cause a significant fraction of the global burden of infectious disease ( 13 – 15 ). Although human leishmaniasis have a variety of clinical range, is the ignored tropical disease, which have a large variety of parasite species, reservoirs and vectors associated in transmission.…”

Models of spatial analysis for vector-borne diseases studies: A systematic review

“…VBD=Vector-borne diseases the following categories: vector species and primary associated disease, study area, biological and environmental data typology, and spatial method. The articles were analyzed in greater detail, considering biological data (number of records and data source), environmental data (number of variables and approximate special resolution), methods (algorithm and set models based on different algorithms), and future projections (years, general circulation model, and climate change scenario) (Table -2) [37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56]. The maximum entropy method, which is usually included in free software with a user-friendly interface and many parametrization options [34,42], was the most used method to evaluate spatial distribution compared to the other algorithms used in many studies [57][58][59].…”

“…CLIMEX has already been described as a model based on the biological processes of vectors, such as life cycle period, biting rates, dispersion capacity, and temperature limits for larvae development. Including these data improve the prediction of the biological plausibility of models, but they require an adequate understanding of vector physiology, making parametrization more challenging [38,62,63]. Models produced through different algorithms (variables) may generate dissimilar and even contradicting results [64][65][66][67].…”

A Qualitative Risk Assessment for Bluetongue Disease and African Horse Sickness: The Risk of Entry and Exposure at a UK Zoo

“…As a result of the emergence of BTV and SBV in northern Europe, this region is currently perceived to be at elevated risk of further incursions of Culicoides -borne arboviruses [ 25 , 37 , 38 , 39 ]. African horse sickness virus (AHSV), which is closely related to bluetongue virus [ 40 ], but causes disease in equine hosts, is the most cited example.…”