Spatiotemporal Fluctuations and Triggers of Ebola Virus Spillover.

ABSTRACT: Because the natural reservoir of Ebola virus remains unclear and disease outbreaks in humans have occurred only sporadically over a large region, forecasting when and where Ebola spillovers are most likely to occur constitutes a continuing and urgent public health challenge. We developed a statistical modeling approach that associates 37 human or great ape Ebola spillovers since 1982 with spatiotemporally dynamic covariates including vegetative cover, human population size, and absolute and relative rainfall over 3 decades across sub-Saharan Africa. Our model (area under the curve 0.80 on test data) shows that spillover intensity is highest during transitions between wet and dry seasons; overall, high seasonal intensity occurs over much of tropical Africa; and spillover intensity is greate

SUBMITTER: Schmidt JP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5382727 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature