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. 2025 Apr 19;12(5):ofaf243.
doi: 10.1093/ofid/ofaf243. eCollection 2025 May.

Paradigm Shift Toward "One Health" Monitoring of Culex-Borne Arbovirus Circulation in France: The 2022 Inaugural Spotlight on West Nile and Usutu Viruses in Nouvelle-Aquitaine

Gaëlle Gonzalez  1 , Camille Victoire Migné  1 , Alexandre Duvignaud  2   3 , Sandra Martin-Latil  1 , Clément Bigeard  1   2   3   4 , Thierry Touzet  4 , Albin Fontaine  5   6 , Stephan Zientara  1 , Xavier de Lamballerie  5 , Denis Malvy  2   3
Affiliations

Paradigm Shift Toward "One Health" Monitoring of Culex-Borne Arbovirus Circulation in France: The 2022 Inaugural Spotlight on West Nile and Usutu Viruses in Nouvelle-Aquitaine

Gaëlle Gonzalez et al. Open Forum Infect Dis. .

Abstract

Global changes have profoundly altered the interactions between pathogens and their hosts, accelerating the emergence of infectious diseases. Monitoring vector-borne infectious diseases is therefore challenging and requires an upgrading of the detection system relying mainly nowadays on passive surveillance and reactive measures when a human case is diagnosed. West Nile virus (WNV) and Usutu virus are 2 zoonotic orthoflaviviruses, maintained between bird populations and mosquitoes, threatening public and veterinary health in Europe. In 2022, WNV unexpectedly emerged on the Atlantic coast of France in equids. Following this emergence, a consortium of national and local actors from the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region conducted crucial operational research, integrating environmental and animal data to make timely evidence-based and territorialized decisions to better assess the risk to human health. The proposal outlines the creation of a novel collaborative effort uniting experts from veterinary, human, and environmental health, as well as policy-makers. This partnership aims to establish a sustainable framework to address persistent knowledge gaps in our comprehension of arboviral disease emergence. By integrating diverse scientific disciplines with institutional decision-making processes, the initiative seeks to enhance our understanding of the complex factors contributing to the emergence and spread of arboviral diseases.

Keywords: One Health; West Nile virus; emergence; operational research; preparedness.

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Conflict of interest statement

Potential conflicts of interest. The authors have no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, the novel zone of emergence of West Nile virus in France since 2022. © Google, Imagery ©2025 TerraMetrics.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Timeline and sampling scheme of the operational research investigations conducted in Gironde. Abbreviations: ELISA, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay; RT-PCR, reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction; TBEV, Tick-Borne Encephalitis virus; USUV, Usutu virus; WNV, West Nile virus.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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