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- Farooq, Zia, et al.
(författare)
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Artificial intelligence to predict West Nile virus outbreaks with eco-climatic drivers
- 2022
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Ingår i: The Lancet Regional Health - Europe. - : Elsevier BV. - 2666-7762. ; 17
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: In Europe, the frequency, intensity, and geographic range of West Nile virus (WNV)-outbreaks have increased over the past decade, with a 7.2-fold increase in 2018 compared to 2017, and a markedly expanded geographic area compared to 2010. The reasons for this increase and range expansion remain largely unknown due to the complexity of the transmission pathways and underlying disease drivers. In a first, we use advanced artificial intelligence to disentangle the contribution of eco-climatic drivers to WNV-outbreaks across Europe using decade-long (2010-2019) data at high spatial resolution. Methods: We use a high-performance machine learning classifier, XGBoost (eXtreme gradient boosting) combined with state-of-the-art XAI (eXplainable artificial intelligence) methodology to describe the predictive ability and contribution of different drivers of the emergence and transmission of WNV-outbreaks in Europe, respectively. Findings: Our model, trained on 2010-2017 data achieved an AUC (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve) score of 0.97 and 0.93 when tested with 2018 and 2019 data, respectively, showing a high discriminatory power to classify a WNV-endemic area. Overall, positive summer/spring temperatures anomalies, lower water availability index (NDWI), and drier winter conditions were found to be the main determinants of WNV-outbreaks across Europe. The climate trends of the preceding year in combination with eco-climatic predictors of the first half of the year provided a robust predictive ability of the entire transmission season ahead of time. For the extraordinary 2018 outbreak year, relatively higher spring temperatures and the abundance of Culex mosquitoes were the strongest predictors, in addition to past climatic trends. Interpretation: Our AI-based framework can be deployed to trigger rapid and timely alerts for active surveillance and vector control measures in order to intercept an imminent WNV-outbreak in Europe. Funding: The work was partially funded by the Swedish Research Council FORMAS for the project ARBOPREVENT (grant agreement 2018-05973).
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- Semenza, Jan C., et al.
(författare)
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Climate Change and Cascading Risks from Infectious Disease
- 2022
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Ingår i: Infectious Diseases and Therapy. - : Springer Nature. - 2193-8229 .- 2193-6382. ; 11:4, s. 1371-1390
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Climate change is adversely affecting the burden of infectious disease throughout the world, which is a health security threat. Climate-sensitive infectious disease includes vector-borne diseases such as malaria, whose transmission potential is expected to increase because of enhanced climatic suitability for the mosquito vector in Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and South America. Climatic suitability for the mosquitoes that can carry dengue, Zika, and chikungunya is also likely to increase, facilitating further increases in the geographic range and longer transmission seasons, and raising concern for expansion of these diseases into temperate zones, particularly under higher greenhouse gas emission scenarios. Early spring temperatures in 2018 seem to have contributed to the early onset and extensive West Nile virus outbreak in Europe, a pathogen expected to expand further beyond its current distribution, due to a warming climate. As for tick-borne diseases, climate change is projected to continue to contribute to the spread of Lyme disease and tick-borne encephalitis, particularly in North America and Europe. Schistosomiasis is a water-borne disease and public health concern in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia; climate change is anticipated to change its distribution, with both expansions and contractions expected. Other water-borne diseases that cause diarrheal diseases have declined significantly over the last decades owing to socioeconomic development and public health measures but changes in climate can reverse some of these positive developments. Weather and climate events, population movement, land use changes, urbanization, global trade, and other drivers can catalyze a succession of secondary events that can lead to a range of health impacts, including infectious disease outbreaks. These cascading risk pathways of causally connected events can result in large-scale outbreaks and affect society at large. We review climatic and other cascading drivers of infectious disease with projections under different climate change scenarios.
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- Semenza, Jan C., et al.
(författare)
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Water-borne diseases : EO system for the coastal monitoring of non-cholera vibrios
- 2022
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Ingår i: Earth observation, public health and one health. - : CABI Publishing. - 9781800621190 - 9781800621183 - 9781800621206 ; , s. 53-65
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The World Health Organization (WHO) has highlighted identification and monitoring of vector populations as an important component of global vector-borne disease surveillance efforts. EO and RVF map data could play a crucial role in identifying risk locations for mosquito-borne diseases globally on the basis of habitat and climate variables. EO and RVF map data are also useful for measuring or mapping a range of environmental parameters that help determine mosquito vector occurrence and abundance and the rate of development of mosquito-borne parasites and pathogens in mosquito vectors. The EO and RVF map data have been sufficiently high spatial and temporal resolution, applied research could develop weather-based and environment-based forecasting of high-risk locations and time periods for mosquito-borne diseases using statistical models. The maps generated by this project indicate and outline the RVF risk areas associated with surface water ponding, mosquito breeding, and cattle grazing for a test area in Senegal. This strategy could include the following recommendations to effectively mitigate the exposure of cattle to RVF, and thus to minimise infection risk for humans: establish a joint communication strategy by integrating information of the forecasted risk bulletins into the National Information System of Surveillance of Epidemics used by the Ministry of Livestock in Senegal and the Headquarters of the Directorate of Veterinary Services of Senegal and its local representatives in rural districts, relocate livestock grazing areas away from risk zones, with warning signs in local languages posted near the ponds to inform breeders to keep their animals at least 500 m away from the ponds, and issue regular bulletins so the Directorate of Veterinary Services of Senegal can organise and optimise vaccination campaigns in the riskiest zones.
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