Cryptococcus gattii emerged on Vancouver Island in 1999 for unknown reasons, causing human and animal fatalities and illness. The apparent emergence of this fungus in another temperate area, this time in the Pacific Northwest, suggests the fungus may have expanded its ecological niche. Yet studies that directly examine the potential roles of climatic and land use changes on C. gattii are still lacking. We aim to summarize the existing global literature on the ecology of C. gattii, with particular focus on the gap in knowledge surrounding the potential effects of climatic and land use changes. We systematically reviewed English peer-reviewed literature on the ecological determinants of C. gattii. We included studies published from January 1970 through June 2016 and identified 56 relevant studies for our review. We identified environmental isolations of C. gattii from 18 countries, spanning 72 separate regions across six continents. Fifty-three tree species were associated with C. gattii, spanning 10 climate classifications and 36 terrestrial ecoregions. No studies directly tested the potential effects of climatic changes (including climatic oscillations and global climate change) on C. gattii, while only one study directly assessed those of land use change. To improve model predictions of current and future distributions of C. gattii, more focus is needed on the potential effects of climatic and land use changes to help decrease the public health risk. The apparent emergence of C. gattii in British Columbia is also an opportunity to explore the factors behind emerging infectious diseases in Canada and elsewhere.
BackgroundMalaria remains the deadliest vector-borne disease despite long-term, costly control efforts. The United Republic of Tanzania has implemented countrywide anti-malarial interventions over more than a decade, including national insecticide-treated net (ITN) rollouts and subsequent monitoring. While previous analyses have compared spatial variation in malaria endemicity with ITN distributions, no study has yet compared Anopheles habitat suitability to determine proper allocation of ITNs. This study assesses where mosquitoes were most likely to thrive before implementation of large-scale ITN interventions in Tanzania and determine if ITN distributions successfully targeted those areas.MethodsUsing Maxent, a species distribution model was constructed relating anopheline mosquito occurrences for 1999–2003 to high resolution environmental observations. A 2011–2012 layer of mosquito net ownership was created using georeferenced data across Tanzania from the Demographic and Health Surveys. The baseline mosquito habitat suitability was compared to subsequent ITN ownership using (1) the average ITN numbers per house and (2) the proportion of households with ≥1 net to test whether national ITN ownership targets have been met and have tracked malaria risk.ResultsElevation, land cover, and human population distribution outperformed variants of temperature and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) in anopheline distribution models. The spatial distribution of ITN ownership across Tanzania was near-random spatially (Moran’s I = 0.07). Householders reported owning 2.488 ITNs on average and 93.41 % of households had ≥1 ITN. Mosquito habitat suitability was statistically unrelated to reported ITN ownership and very weakly to the proportion of households with ≥1 ITN (R2 = 0.051). Proportional ITN ownership/household varied relative to mosquito habitat suitability (Levene’s test F = 3.0037). Quantile regression was used to assess trends in ITN ownership among households with the highest and lowest 10 % of ITN ownership. ITN ownership declined significantly toward areas with the highest vector habitat suitability among households with lowest ITN ownership (t = −3.38). In areas with lowest habitat suitability, ITN ownership was consistently higher.ConclusionsInsecticide-treated net ownership is critical for malaria control. While Tanzania-wide efforts to distribute ITNs has reduced malaria impacts, gaps and variance in ITN ownership are unexpectedly large in areas where malaria risk is highest. Supplemental ITN distributions targeting prime Anopheles habitats are likely to have disproportionate human health benefits.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12936-015-0841-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Background: Planetary health is an emerging holistic health field to foster interdisciplinary collaborations, integrate Indigenous knowledge, facilitate education, and drive public and policy engagement. To understand to what extent the field has successfully met these goals, we conducted a scoping review and bibliometric analysis. Methods: We searched 15 databases from 2005 to 2019 for peer-reviewed publications with the term "planetary health" in the title, abstract and/or keywords, with no language or geographical location limitations. We classified results into four categories (commentaries, comprehensive syntheses, educational material, and original research) and categorized original research according to expert-derived planetary health themes. Our bibliometric analysis highlighted publications over time, collaborations, and networks of keywords. Findings: Only 8.1% (n = 22) were research articles. Publications rose rapidly from 8 to 64 publications per year in 2015-2018. The top five author affiliation countries for most publications were the US, UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, and the top five collaborations were a subset of pairwise combinations between the US, UK, Australia, and Canada. The most common author keywords were the following: planetary health, climate change, ecology, and non-communicable diseases. Keyword co-occurrences clustered around high-level concepts (e.g., Anthropocene) and food system-related topics; two clusters lacked a theme. Interpretation: We show that the term planetary health is used mainly in commentary-like publications, not original research. Additionally, more global collaborations are lacking. Interdisciplinary work, as represented by keyword co-occurrence networks, is developing but could potentially be extended. The planetary health community should promote more worldwide research and interdisciplinary collaborations.
Arthropod disease vectors, most notably mosquitoes, ticks, tsetse flies, and sandflies, are strongly influenced by environmental conditions and responsible for the vast majority of global vector-borne human diseases. The most widely used statistical models to predict future vector distributions model species niches and project the models forward under future climate scenarios. Although these methods address variations in vector distributions through space, their capacity to predict changing distributions through time is far less certain. Here, we review modeling methods used to validate and forecast future distributions of arthropod vectors under the effects of climate change and outline the uses or limitations of these techniques. We then suggest a validation approach specific to temporal extrapolation models that is gaining momentum in macroecological modeling and has great potential for epidemiological modeling of disease vectors. We performed systematic searches in the Web of Science, ScienceDirect, and Google Scholar to identify peer-reviewed English journal articles that model arthropod disease vector distributions under future environment scenarios. We included studies published up to and including June, 2014. We identified 29 relevant articles for our review. The majority of these studies predicted current species niches and projected the models forward under future climate scenarios without temporal validation. Historically calibrated forecast models improve predictions of changing vector distributions by tracking known shifts through recently observed time periods. With accelerating climate change, accurate predictions of shifts in disease vectors are crucial to target vector control interventions where needs are greatest.
In 2018 the fungal pathogen Cryptococcus bacillisporus (AFLP5/VGIII) was isolated for the first time in Chile, representing the only report in a temperate region in South America. We reconstructed the colonization process of C. bacillisporus in Chile, estimating the phylogenetic origin, the potential spread zone, and the population at risk. We performed a phylogenetic analysis of the strain and modeled the environmental niche of the pathogen projecting its potential spread zone into the new colonized region. Finally, we generated risk maps and quantified the people under potential risk. Phylogenetic analysis showed high similarity between the Chilean isolate and two clonal clusters from California, United States and Colombia in South America. The pathogen can expand into all the temperate Mediterranean zone in central Chile and western Argentina, exposing more than 12 million people to this pathogen in Chile. This study has epidemiological and public health implications for the response to a potential C. bacillisporus outbreak, optimizing budgets, routing for screening diagnosis, and treatment implementation.
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