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. 2015 Dec 30;10(12):e0146024.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0146024. eCollection 2015.

Spatio-Temporal Identification of Areas Suitable for West Nile Disease in the Mediterranean Basin and Central Europe

Annamaria Conte  1 , Luca Candeloro  1 , Carla Ippoliti  1 , Federica Monaco  1 , Fabrizio De Massis  1 , Rossana Bruno  1 , Daria Di Sabatino  1 , Maria Luisa Danzetta  1 , Abdennasser Benjelloun  2   3 , Bouchra Belkadi  3 , Mehdi El Harrak  2 , Silvia Declich  4 , Caterina Rizzo  4 , Salah Hammami  5 , Thameur Ben Hassine  5 , Paolo Calistri  1 , Giovanni Savini  1
Affiliations

Spatio-Temporal Identification of Areas Suitable for West Nile Disease in the Mediterranean Basin and Central Europe

Annamaria Conte et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

West Nile virus (WNV) is a mosquito-transmitted Flavivirus belonging to the Japanese encephalitis antigenic complex of the Flaviviridae family. Its spread in the Mediterranean basin and the Balkans poses a significant risk to human health and forces public health officials to constantly monitor the virus transmission to ensure prompt application of preventive measures. In this context, predictive tools indicating the areas and periods at major risk of WNV transmission are of paramount importance. Spatial analysis approaches, which use environmental and climatic variables to find suitable habitats for WNV spread, can enhance predictive techniques. Using the Mahalanobis Distance statistic, areas ecologically most suitable for sustaining WNV transmission were identified in the Mediterranean basin and Central Europe. About 270 human and equine clinical cases notified in Italy, Greece, Portugal, Morocco, and Tunisia, between 2008 and 2012, have been considered. The environmental variables included in the model were altitude, slope, night time Land Surface Temperature, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, Enhanced Vegetation Index, and daily temperature range. Seasonality of mosquito population has been modelled and included in the analyses to produce monthly maps of suitable areas for West Nile Disease. Between May and July, the most suitable areas are located in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and North Cyprus. Summer/Autumn months, particularly between August and October, characterize the suitability in Italy, France, Spain, the Balkan countries, Morocco, North Tunisia, the Mediterranean coast of Africa, and the Middle East. The persistence of suitable conditions in December is confined to the coastal areas of Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and Israel.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have the following interests: Mehdi El Harrak is employed by Société de Produits Biologiques et Pharmaceutiques vétérinaires (Biopharma), which is a semi-public company financed in large part by Ministry of Agriculture. Abdennasser Benjelloun performed laboratory tests in the laboratories of Société de Produits Biologiques et Pharmaceutiques vétérinaires (Biopharma), during his period of PhD. There are no patents, products in development or marketed products to declare. This does not alter our adherence to all the PLoS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Study area: distribution of reported West Nile virus by country, region, and province since the 90s (light red polygons) and case locations included in the study between 2008–2012 (red points).
Fig 2
Fig 2. West Nile Disease suitability maps (on a monthly basis) from May to December for the study area.
From January to April, no areas suitable for WND were predicted (probability was less than 1%).
Fig 3
Fig 3. Validation of West Nile Disease presence prediction: receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves in the k-fold (k = 7) iterations.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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