Ecological Niche Modeling for Filoviruses: A Risk Map for Ebola and Marburg Virus Disease Outbreaks in Uganda.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Uganda has reported eight outbreaks caused by filoviruses between 2000 to 2016, more than any other country in the world. We used species distribution modeling to predict where filovirus outbreaks are likely to occur in Uganda to help in epidemic preparedness and surveillance.

Methods

The MaxEnt software, a machine learning modeling approach that uses presence-only data was used to establish filovirus - environmental relationships. Presence-only data for filovirus outbreaks were collected from the field and online sources. Environmental covariates from Africlim that have been downscaled to a nominal resolution of 1km x 1km were used. The final model gave the relative probability of the presence of filoviruses in the study area obtained from an average of 100 boo

SUBMITTER: Nyakarahuka L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5614672 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature