title: Identifying the environmental conditions favouring West Nile Virus outbreaks in Europe.
abstract: West Nile Virus (WNV) is a globally important mosquito borne virus, with significant implications for human and animal health. The emergence and spread of new lineages, and increased pathogenicity, is the cause of escalating public health concern. Pinpointing the environmental conditions that favour WNV circulation and transmission to humans is challenging, due both to the complexity of its biological cycle, and the under-diagnosis and reporting of epidemiological data. Here, we used remote sensing and GIS to enable collation of multiple types of environmental data over a continental spatial scale, in order to model annual West Nile Fever (WNF) incidence across Europe and neighbouring countries. Multi-model selection and inference were used to gain a consensus from multiple linear mixed models. Climate and landscape were key predictors of WNF outbreaks (specifically, high precipitation in late winter/early spring, high summer temperatures, summer drought, occurrence of irrigated croplands and highly fragmented forests). Identification of the environmental conditions associated with WNF outbreaks is key to enabling public health bodies to properly focus surveillance and mitigation of West Nile virus impact, but more work needs to be done to enable accurate predictions of WNF risk.
authors: Department of Biodiversity and Molecular Ecology, Research and Innovation Centre, Fondazione Edmund Mach, San Michele all'Adige, Italy.
authors: Matteo
authors: M
authors: Marcantonio
authors: Department of Biodiversity and Molecular Ecology, Research and Innovation Centre, Fondazione Edmund Mach, San Michele all'Adige, Italy.
authors: Annapaola
authors: A
authors: Rizzoli
authors: Department of Biodiversity and Molecular Ecology, Research and Innovation Centre, Fondazione Edmund Mach, San Michele all'Adige, Italy.
authors: Markus
authors: M
authors: Metz
authors: Department of Biodiversity and Molecular Ecology, Research and Innovation Centre, Fondazione Edmund Mach, San Michele all'Adige, Italy.
authors: Roberto
authors: R
authors: Rosà
authors: Department of Biodiversity and Molecular Ecology, Research and Innovation Centre, Fondazione Edmund Mach, San Michele all'Adige, Italy.
authors: Giovanni
authors: G
authors: Marini
authors: School of Bioscience, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom.
authors: Elizabeth
authors: E
authors: Chadwick
authors: Department of Biodiversity and Molecular Ecology, Research and Innovation Centre, Fondazione Edmund Mach, San Michele all'Adige, Italy.
authors: Markus
authors: M
authors: Neteler
mesh_terms: D004196:Disease Outbreaks / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D004777:Environment; D005060:Europe / Q000453:epidemiology; D040362:Geographic Information Systems; D006801:Humans; D016014:Linear Models; D011157:Population Dynamics; D058998:Remote Sensing Technology / Q000379:methods; D013045:Species Specificity; D014901:West Nile Fever / Q000453:epidemiology*; D014902:West Nile virus / Q000235:genetics*