scholarly journals Climate change impacts on West Nile virus transmission in a global context

2015 ◽  
Vol 370 (1665) ◽  
pp. 20130561 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shlomit Paz
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
West Nile Virus ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Climatic Factors ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
West Nile ◽  
Transmission Cycle ◽  
Western Asia ◽  
West Nile Virus Transmission

West Nile virus (WNV), the most widely distributed virus of the encephalitic flaviviruses, is a vector-borne pathogen of global importance. The transmission cycle exists in rural and urban areas where the virus infects birds, humans, horses and other mammals. Multiple factors impact the transmission and distribution of WNV, related to the dynamics and interactions between pathogen, vector, vertebrate hosts and environment. Hence, among other drivers, weather conditions have direct and indirect influences on vector competence (the ability to acquire, maintain and transmit the virus), on the vector population dynamic and on the virus replication rate within the mosquito, which are mostly weather dependent. The importance of climatic factors (temperature, precipitation, relative humidity and winds) as drivers in WNV epidemiology is increasing under conditions of climate change. Indeed, recent changes in climatic conditions, particularly increased ambient temperature and fluctuations in rainfall amounts, contributed to the maintenance (endemization process) of WNV in various locations in southern Europe, western Asia, the eastern Mediterranean, the Canadian Prairies, parts of the USA and Australia. As predictions show that the current trends are expected to continue, for better preparedness, any assessment of future transmission of WNV should take into consideration the impacts of climate change.

scholarly journals Perspectives on Applying Artificial Intelligence to Model Outbreak Risk: Contextualizing the Impact of Climate Change on Vector-borne Disease

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alberto Alexander Gayle
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Climate Change ◽  
West Nile Virus ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Climatic Factors ◽  
Disease Spread ◽  
Behavioral Variability ◽  
Climatic Effects ◽  
West Nile ◽  
The Impact

As recent history has shown, changing climate not only threatens to increase the spread of known disease, but also the emergence of new and dangerous phenotypes. This occurred most recently with West Nile virus: a virus previously known for mild febrile illness rapidly emerged to become a major cause of mortality and long-term disability throughout the world. As we move forward, into increasingly uncertain times, public health research must begin to incorporate a broader understanding of the determinants of disease emergence – what, how, why, and when. The increasing mainstream availability of high-quality open data and high-powered analytical methods presents promising new opportunities. Up to now, quantitative models of disease outbreak risk have been largely based on just a few key drivers, namely climate and large-scale climatic effects. Such limited assessments, however, often overlook key interacting processes and downstream determinants more likely to drive local manifestation of disease. Such pivotal determinants may include local host abundance, human behavioral variability, and population susceptibility dynamics. The results of such analyses can therefore be misleading in cases where necessary downstream requirements are not fulfilled. It is therefore important to develop models that include climate and higher-level climatic effects alongside the downstream non-climatic factors that ultimately determine individual disease manifestation. Today, few models attempt to comprehensively address such dynamics: up until very recently, the technology simply hasn’t been available. Herein, we present an updated overview of current perspectives on the varying drivers and levels of interactions that drive disease spread. We review the predominant analytical paradigms, discuss their strengths and weaknesses, and highlight promising new analytical solutions. Our focus is on the prediction of arboviruses, particularly West Nile virus, as these diseases represent the pinnacle of epidemiological complexity – solution to which would serve as an effective “gatekeeper”. We present the current state-of-the-art with respect to known drivers of arbovirus outbreak risk and severity, differentially highlighting the impact of climate and non-climatic drivers. The reality of multiple classes of drivers interacting at different geospatial and temporal scales requires advanced new methodologies. We therefore close out by presenting and discussing some promising new applications of AI. Given the reality of accelerating disease risks due to climate change, public health and other related fields must begin the process of updating their research programs to incorporate these much needed, new capabilities.

scholarly journals The effect of climate change on depression in urban areas of western Iran

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hamed Abbasi
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Mental Health ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Climate Changes ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Western Iran ◽  
Regime Changes ◽  
Climatic Time Series ◽  
Climatic Elements

Abstract Objective Human is accustomed to climatic conditions of the environment where they are born and live throughout their lifetime. The aim of this study is to examine mood swings and depression caused by sudden climate changes that have not yet given the humans a chance to adapt. Results Our results showed that depression could be affected by climate change and as a result, the behavior of climatic elements and trends has damaged mental health in the western regions of Iran. By investigating the trends and changes of climatic time series and their relationship with the rate of depression in urban areas of western Iran, it can be said that climate change is probably a mental health challenge for urban populations. Climate change is an important and worrying issue that makes the life difficult. Rapid climate changes in western Iran including rising air temperature, changes in precipitation, its regime, changes cloudiness and the amount of sunlight have a negative effects on health. The results showed that type of increasing or decreasing trend, as well as different climatic elements in various seasons did not have the same effect on the rate of depression in the studied areas.

scholarly journals Ecologic Factors Associated with West Nile Virus Transmission, Northeastern United States

2008 ◽  
Vol 14 (10) ◽  
pp. 1539-1545 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heidi E. Brown ◽  
James E. Childs ◽  
Maria A. Diuk-Wasser ◽  
Durland Fish
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
West Nile Virus ◽  
Virus Transmission ◽  
Northeastern United States ◽  
West Nile ◽  
Factors Associated ◽  
West Nile Virus Transmission

scholarly journals Genetic variation in West Nile virus from naturally infected mosquitoes and birds suggests quasispecies structure and strong purifying selection

2005 ◽  
Vol 86 (8) ◽  
pp. 2175-2183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Greta Jerzak ◽  
Kristen A. Bernard ◽  
Laura D. Kramer ◽  
Gregory D. Ebel
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Diversity ◽  
West Nile Virus ◽  
Consensus Sequence ◽  
Purifying Selection ◽  
Infected Mosquito ◽  
Structural Protein ◽  
Coding Region ◽  
West Nile ◽  
Transmission Cycle ◽  
The Mean

Intrahost genetic diversity was analysed in naturally infected mosquitoes and birds to determine whether West Nile virus (WNV) exists in nature as a quasispecies and to quantify selective pressures within and between hosts. WNV was sampled from ten infected birds and ten infected mosquito pools collected on Long Island, NY, USA, during the peak of the 2003 WNV transmission season. A 1938 nt fragment comprising the 3′ 1159 nt of the WNV envelope (E) coding region and the 5′ 779 nt of the non-structural protein 1 (NS1) coding region was amplified and cloned and 20 clones per specimen were sequenced. Results from this analysis demonstrate that WNV infections are derived from a genetically diverse population of genomes in nature. The mean nucleotide diversity was 0·016 % within individual specimens and the mean percentage of clones that differed from the consensus sequence was 19·5 %. WNV sequences in mosquitoes were significantly more genetically diverse than WNV in birds. No host-dependent bias for particular types of mutations was observed and estimates of genetic diversity did not differ significantly between E and NS1 coding sequences. Non-consensus clones obtained from two avian specimens had highly similar genetic signatures, providing preliminary evidence that WNV genetic diversity may be maintained throughout the enzootic transmission cycle, rather than arising independently during each infection. Evidence of purifying selection was obtained from both intra- and interhost WNV populations. Combined, these data support the observation that WNV populations may be structured as a quasispecies and document strong purifying natural selection in WNV populations.

LarvicidingCulexspp. (Diptera: Culicidae) Populations in Catch Basins and Its Impact on West Nile Virus Transmission in Urban Parks in Atlanta, GA

2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 222-232 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph R McMillan ◽  
Rebekah A Blakney ◽  
Daniel G Mead ◽  
Sarah M Coker ◽  
Levi T Morran ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
West Nile Virus ◽  
Virus Transmission ◽  
Urban Parks ◽  
West Nile ◽  
West Nile Virus Transmission ◽  
Catch Basins
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