Spatio-Temporal Identification of Areas Suitable for West Nile Disease in the Mediterranean Basin and Central Europe.

ABSTRACT: West Nile virus (WNV) is a mosquito-transmitted Flavivirus belonging to the Japanese encephalitis antigenic complex of the Flaviviridae family. Its spread in the Mediterranean basin and the Balkans poses a significant risk to human health and forces public health officials to constantly monitor the virus transmission to ensure prompt application of preventive measures. In this context, predictive tools indicating the areas and periods at major risk of WNV transmission are of paramount importance. Spatial analysis approaches, which use environmental and climatic variables to find suitable habitats for WNV spread, can enhance predictive techniques. Using the Mahalanobis Distance statistic, areas ecologically most suitable for sustaining WNV transmission were identified in the Mediterranean b

SUBMITTER: Conte A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4696814 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature