title: H7N9 and H5N1 avian influenza suitability models for China: accounting for new poultry and live-poultry markets distribution data.
abstract: In the last two decades, two important avian influenza viruses infecting humans emerged in China, the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 virus in the late nineties, and the low pathogenic avian influenza (LPAI) H7N9 virus in 2013. China is home to the largest population of chickens (4.83 billion) and ducks (0.694 billion), representing, respectively 23.1 and 58.6% of the 2013 world stock, with a significant part of poultry sold through live-poultry markets potentially contributing to the spread of avian influenza viruses. Previous models have looked at factors associated with HPAI H5N1 in poultry and LPAI H7N9 in markets. However, these have not been studied and compared with a consistent set of predictor variables. Significant progress was recently made in the collection of poultry census and live-poultry market data, which are key potential factors in the distribution of both diseases. Here we compiled and reprocessed a new set of poultry census data and used these to analyse HPAI H5N1 and LPAI H7N9 distributions with boosted regression trees models. We found a limited impact of the improved poultry layers compared to models based on previous poultry census data, and a positive and previously unreported association between HPAI H5N1 outbreaks and the density of live-poultry markets. In addition, the models fitted for the HPAI H5N1 and LPAI H7N9 viruses predict a high risk of disease presence for the area around Shanghai and Hong Kong. The main difference in prediction between the two viruses concerned the suitability of HPAI H5N1 in north-China around the Yellow sea (outlined with Tianjin, Beijing, and Shenyang city) where LPAI H7N9 has not spread intensely.
authors.affiliation: Spatial Epidemiology Lab. (SpELL), Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: Jean
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Artois
authors.affiliation: Division of Infectious Disease, Key Laboratory of Surveillance and Early-warning on Infectious Disease, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 155 Changbai Road, Changping District, Beijing, 102206 China.|WorldPop, Department of Geography and Environment, University of Southampton, Southampton, SO17 1BJ UK.|Key Laboratory of Public Health Safety, Ministry of Education, School of Public Health, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200032 China.
authors.forename: Shengjie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lai
authors.affiliation: Division of Infectious Disease, Key Laboratory of Surveillance and Early-warning on Infectious Disease, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 155 Changbai Road, Changping District, Beijing, 102206 China.
authors.forename: Luzhao
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Feng
authors.affiliation: Division of Infectious Disease, Key Laboratory of Surveillance and Early-warning on Infectious Disease, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 155 Changbai Road, Changping District, Beijing, 102206 China.
authors.forename: Hui
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: Division of Infectious Disease, Key Laboratory of Surveillance and Early-warning on Infectious Disease, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 155 Changbai Road, Changping District, Beijing, 102206 China.
authors.forename: Hang
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biodiversity Science, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433 China.
authors.forename: Xiangping
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Spatial Epidemiology Lab. (SpELL), Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium.|Department of Animal Husbandry & Dairying, Government of Haryana, Pashudhan Bhawan, Bays No. 9-12, Sector -2, Panchkula, Haryana 134109 India.
authors.forename: Madhur S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Dhingra
authors.affiliation: Spatial Epidemiology Lab. (SpELL), Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium.|Department of Geography, Université de Namur, Namur, Belgium.
authors.forename: Catherine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Linard
authors.affiliation: Spatial Epidemiology Lab. (SpELL), Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: Gaëlle
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Nicolas
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, Center for Spatial AnalysisUniversity of Oklahoma, 101 David L. Boren Blvd, Norman, OK 73019 USA.
authors.forename: Xiangming
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Xiao
authors.affiliation: Livestock Systems and Environment (LSE), International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Nairobi, Kenya.
authors.forename: Timothy P
authors.initials: TP
authors.lastname: Robinson
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Public Health Safety, Ministry of Education, School of Public Health, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200032 China.
authors.forename: Hongjie
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: Spatial Epidemiology Lab. (SpELL), Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium.|Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique, Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: Marius
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-3708-3359
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gilbert
keywords: Avian influenza; HPAI H5N1; LPAI H7N9; Poultry data; Spatial epidemiology