Local rabies transmission and regional spatial coupling in European foxes

Abstract

Infectious diseases are often transmitted through local interactions. Yet, both surveillance and control measures are implemented within administrative units. Capturing local transmission processes and spatial coupling between regions from aggregate level data is therefore a technical challenge that can shed light on both theoretical questions and practical decisions.Fox rabies has been eliminated from much of Europe through oral rabies vaccination (ORV) programmes. The European Union (EU) co-finances ORV to maintain rabies freedom in EU member and border states via a cordon sanitaire. Models to capture local transmission dynamics and spatial coupling have immediate application to the planning of these ORV campaigns and to other parts of the world considering oral vaccination.We fitted a hierarchical Bayesian state-space model to data on three decades of fox rabies cases and ORV campaigns from Eastern Germany. Specifically, we find that (i) combining regional spatial coupling and heterogeneous local transmission allows us to capture regional rabies dynamics; (ii) incursions from other regions account for less than 1% of cases, but allow for re-emergence of disease; (iii) herd immunity achieved through bi-annual vaccination campaigns is short-lived due to population turnover. Together, these findings highlight the need for regular and sustained vaccination efforts and our modelling approach can be used to provide strategic guidance for ORV delivery. Moreover, we show that biological understanding can be gained from inference from partially observed data on wildlife disease.

Recommendations and technical specifications for sustainable surveillance of zoonotic pathogens where wildlife is implicated

“… Role in long-distance spread or cross-border spread in a setting comparable to the EU: Red fox present continuous distribution over most European territory, which may favour disease spread over long distances. For instance, in the case of rabies in red fox, incursions from other regions account for less than 1% of cases but allow for re-emergence of disease (Baker et al 2020). Wolf and racoon dog are long distance dispersers that may spread pathogens over long distances may potentially play a very important role in long distance spreading of pathogens through dispersal (e.g., Echinococcus and wolf).…”